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annbutnotanne's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
It's been years since I read a Laini Taylor novel, and years since I had put this on my TBR. All in all, I was pleasantly surprised, but I became a little disappointed with the way Taylor executed some things.
I've heard a lot of people rave about the writing style in this book, and honestly while I didn't dislike it, I'm unsure as to why everyone really loved it. It's not bad, not by any means, but it's a lot of similes and metaphors, which doesn't necessarily wow me the way it probably did when I was younger. It honestly felt like a lot for some scenes that simply weren't important enough to use flowery language like that.
One of the things that got me very invested in the story was of course Lazlo. I love a good underdog, and Lazlo is such an underdog it hurts. Second thing that got me interested was the world of Weep, once we get there, and all that's happened since it disappeared 200 years ago. It was interesting, and allows for a difficult moral quandary to be explored throughout the novel.
However, this book also disappointed me in the execution of said moral quandary. By making one character likeable and the other decidedly not, it doesn't allow me to feel the full tug-of-war that this situation should make me feel. There's nothing wrong with having a villain also be a victim of something horrible, and having a friendly side character be both a victim as well as the perpetrator of said horrible thing, but I want to at least sympathize with the victim turned villain, and this book just doesn't allow that to occur, which was so disappointing.
And then the romance got introduced and I got uninvested very quickly. Didn't care about it, didn't care for it, just wasn't my cup of tea. And the way it took over the story was very irritating. By the end I didn't really care what happened, I just wanted to know how it would all end up. And you know what, Laini Taylor made a great pathway for her next book with plenty of interesting set-ups. And to be frank, I will only pick up the final book just to see how it all ends up.
Not a bad book by any means, but I hate that it could clearly be so much stronger of an entry.
I've heard a lot of people rave about the writing style in this book, and honestly while I didn't dislike it, I'm unsure as to why everyone really loved it. It's not bad, not by any means, but it's a lot of similes and metaphors, which doesn't necessarily wow me the way it probably did when I was younger. It honestly felt like a lot for some scenes that simply weren't important enough to use flowery language like that.
One of the things that got me very invested in the story was of course Lazlo. I love a good underdog, and Lazlo is such an underdog it hurts. Second thing that got me interested was the world of Weep, once we get there, and all that's happened since it disappeared 200 years ago. It was interesting, and allows for a difficult moral quandary to be explored throughout the novel.
However, this book also disappointed me in the execution of said moral quandary. By making one character likeable and the other decidedly not, it doesn't allow me to feel the full tug-of-war that this situation should make me feel. There's nothing wrong with having a villain also be a victim of something horrible, and having a friendly side character be both a victim as well as the perpetrator of said horrible thing, but I want to at least sympathize with the victim turned villain, and this book just doesn't allow that to occur, which was so disappointing.
And then the romance got introduced and I got uninvested very quickly. Didn't care about it, didn't care for it, just wasn't my cup of tea. And the way it took over the story was very irritating. By the end I didn't really care what happened, I just wanted to know how it would all end up. And you know what, Laini Taylor made a great pathway for her next book with plenty of interesting set-ups. And to be frank, I will only pick up the final book just to see how it all ends up.
Not a bad book by any means, but I hate that it could clearly be so much stronger of an entry.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Rape and Slavery
whatevertheysay's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism and Death
Moderate: Child death, Slavery, Murder, Rape, and Violence
brynn_books's review against another edition
3.5
I have weird feelings about this book. On one hand, I absolutely loved it and needed to keep reading to find out what happened. On the other hand, I had to force myself to pick it up and read, so I could finish it.
There was a lot of unnecessary filler scenes that were so boring and agonizing to read. It was really boring at times. Sometimes I wonder how this book was so long because I can barely anything that happened. The things that I can’t remember are filler scenes that I feel like didn’t really do anything important to the story and were really hard to get through.
But besides all of that, it was a fairly pleasant read. I’m excited to see what happens in the sequel.
There was a lot of unnecessary filler scenes that were so boring and agonizing to read. It was really boring at times. Sometimes I wonder how this book was so long because I can barely anything that happened. The things that I can’t remember are filler scenes that I feel like didn’t really do anything important to the story and were really hard to get through.
But besides all of that, it was a fairly pleasant read. I’m excited to see what happens in the sequel.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Violence
Moderate: Rape, Slavery, and Kidnapping
oddduck's review against another edition
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
This was a reread for me, and I did not remember anything that had happened (because I read this 5 years ago, when it first came out), but as I was reading this time, I was very certain that many of my thoughts were the same ones I had the first time I read this.
For starters, this is a very beautiful book. I love the cover, and the writing itself is also very lovely. I was especially drawn to the way she kept slipping absolutely knockout lines about the nature of humanity in amongst the description and exposition. The first time I read this and got to the part where Sarai tells Lazlo, "Good people do all the things bad people do. It's just that when they do them, they call it justice." I had to stop reading, copy the quote down, and just sit for a minute. And Laini Taylor drops lines like that everywhere in this book! It was quite delightful for me.
I also remembered how much I loved the complexity of this story. The relationship between the citizens of Weep and the surviving godspawn was especially fascinating to me because both sides have very valid feelings about what happened. The mesarthim very much terrorized and traumatized Weep for two centuries, so it's hard to feel bad about Eril-Fane murdering them. It's really the murder of the baby godspawn that is the sticking point. Because I understand why he did it, but I still can't help but wonder how those children might have grown up if they'd been sent somewhere else, where they could be raised with love (because that was never going to happen in Weep and after the trauma those people went through, raising the godspawn would only be inflicting further trauma on them). So I understand Eril-Fane's motivation and don't think he was really wrong in his actions, but we also get Sarai and Minya's views, and their feelings about this situation also make sense and are justified. This whole situation is very complicated and messy and it's one where there is no solution that will make everyone happy, which is very difficult to deal with, but it's handled very adeptly here.
Despite all the things I enjoyed in about this book, I did have a hard time getting into it and staying in it. Part of this, I think, is that I don't really care for full on fantasy worlds, which this is. It's nothing against this book or fantasy in general, it's just hard for me personally to read, and I acknowledge that and read accordingly. Beyond that though, this book was just very slow to me, especially at the beginning. The scene where Thyon Nero requisitions Lazlo's books about Weep spanned far too many chapters, for example, because there was a lot of backstory and exposition that got in the way. It was all interesting, and I know why it was included, but because the writing style itself is very slow, all of these extra scenes in the middle of the the action made parts of this really drag for me. This technique also made it difficult to remember what was happening in the present, even with the narrative clues, purely because there was so much other information I had to absorb. And this continued throughout the book. The last 50 or so pages were probably my favorite, because so much happened, and it all happened in a much faster pace. It was exciting and I wish the rest of the book had been more like that, because the story itself is very interesting.
For starters, this is a very beautiful book. I love the cover, and the writing itself is also very lovely. I was especially drawn to the way she kept slipping absolutely knockout lines about the nature of humanity in amongst the description and exposition. The first time I read this and got to the part where Sarai tells Lazlo, "Good people do all the things bad people do. It's just that when they do them, they call it justice." I had to stop reading, copy the quote down, and just sit for a minute. And Laini Taylor drops lines like that everywhere in this book! It was quite delightful for me.
I also remembered how much I loved the complexity of this story. The relationship between the citizens of Weep and the surviving godspawn was especially fascinating to me because both sides have very valid feelings about what happened. The mesarthim very much terrorized and traumatized Weep for two centuries, so it's hard to feel bad about Eril-Fane murdering them. It's really the murder of the baby godspawn that is the sticking point. Because I understand why he did it, but I still can't help but wonder how those children might have grown up if they'd been sent somewhere else, where they could be raised with love (because that was never going to happen in Weep and after the trauma those people went through, raising the godspawn would only be inflicting further trauma on them). So I understand Eril-Fane's motivation and don't think he was really wrong in his actions, but we also get Sarai and Minya's views, and their feelings about this situation also make sense and are justified. This whole situation is very complicated and messy and it's one where there is no solution that will make everyone happy, which is very difficult to deal with, but it's handled very adeptly here.
Despite all the things I enjoyed in about this book, I did have a hard time getting into it and staying in it. Part of this, I think, is that I don't really care for full on fantasy worlds, which this is. It's nothing against this book or fantasy in general, it's just hard for me personally to read, and I acknowledge that and read accordingly. Beyond that though, this book was just very slow to me, especially at the beginning. The scene where Thyon Nero requisitions Lazlo's books about Weep spanned far too many chapters, for example, because there was a lot of backstory and exposition that got in the way. It was all interesting, and I know why it was included, but because the writing style itself is very slow, all of these extra scenes in the middle of the the action made parts of this really drag for me. This technique also made it difficult to remember what was happening in the present, even with the narrative clues, purely because there was so much other information I had to absorb. And this continued throughout the book. The last 50 or so pages were probably my favorite, because so much happened, and it all happened in a much faster pace. It was exciting and I wish the rest of the book had been more like that, because the story itself is very interesting.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic friendship, Body horror, Confinement, and Blood
Moderate: Child death, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Grief, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Murder, Slavery, Violence, and Xenophobia
Minor: Sexual violence, Sexual assault, War, and Rape
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