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sarah_baker's review against another edition
dark
medium-paced
4.25
This book was dark and twisted, and had some graphic descriptions of scenes that made be a bit sick to my stomach - in an enticing and exciting way. It had moments that made my jaw drop, and it gets lots of points for a unique magic system and fantasy setting. The pacing of the book was strange - pivotal scenes of the story held the same weight as the description of a street, so if I was reading too fast, I actually missed some major points. Really great book!!!
wheelofparm's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
confusedmagpie's review against another edition
2.0
Very minor spoilers ahead
I truly don’t get the hype about this book. The plot literally starts halfway through it, the characters are bland and forgettable, and the author doesn’t want or care to make us privy to their feelings and thoughts when the story is begging him to do so, the exposition is delivered clumsily and in the worst possible ways and moments, and the subjects of poverty and misery are used as a backdrop but never really addressed, as if the author wanted to fetichize poverty (especially when it comes the female characters and prostitution).
If you want a book starring a poor street urchin/kinda orphan with a criminal background that turns out to have a bigger role to play in the world and comes from mysterious origins, ends up using God’s body as a source of power and has a talking dog-companion, go read Mistborn (odd how many parallels there are).
Two stars because some parts were nicely written, and the Interlude from the perspective of a sentient dog was nice.
I truly don’t get the hype about this book. The plot literally starts halfway through it, the characters are bland and forgettable, and the author doesn’t want or care to make us privy to their feelings and thoughts when the story is begging him to do so, the exposition is delivered clumsily and in the worst possible ways and moments, and the subjects of poverty and misery are used as a backdrop but never really addressed, as if the author wanted to fetichize poverty (especially when it comes the female characters and prostitution).
If you want a book starring a poor street urchin/kinda orphan with a criminal background that turns out to have a bigger role to play in the world and comes from mysterious origins, ends up using God’s body as a source of power and has a talking dog-companion, go read Mistborn (odd how many parallels there are).
Two stars because some parts were nicely written, and the Interlude from the perspective of a sentient dog was nice.
alexpinard's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
jomblejumble's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
pili_pi's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gore and Violence
swordrager's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
There is a good book somewhere in this book but it has unfortunately been buried in the Living Mud - or perhaps the problem is that there are fragments of different good books.
It opens with a promising start as a classic fantasy coming of age story with a dark tone and an increase in complexity, but the latter half of the book is much more scrambled. It seems to be one part character study, one part bombastic action movie, and one part verbose and meandering novel.
It ends up medium paced by jerking back and forth between slow and fast without transition or art. It delivers massive revelations and then refuses to let them breathe but makes sure to spend pages on side characters. I found it to be a very frustrating read.
It opens with a promising start as a classic fantasy coming of age story with a dark tone and an increase in complexity, but the latter half of the book is much more scrambled. It seems to be one part character study, one part bombastic action movie, and one part verbose and meandering novel.
It ends up medium paced by jerking back and forth between slow and fast without transition or art. It delivers massive revelations and then refuses to let them breathe but makes sure to spend pages on side characters. I found it to be a very frustrating read.
wunkymatts's review against another edition
3.0
I wanted a book to get lost in. I wanted a thick, dense fantasy that spun a world around me so completely I would live there more than the real one. At first I thought this might be the one. It started so well, the world was wonderfully realised, but then it started to run out of steam.
The pacing was patchy, certainty in the second half of a book (which clocks in at over 500 pages) when it really needed to keep momentum. Some parts dragged, others seemed to be rushed through. There was also a very strange section written in a completely different style, and I'm not convinced the same information could not have been shown in keeping with the rest of the book.
Also the low level misogyny was starting to grate. Most femal characters (of which there were vanishingly few anyway) were manipulative sex workers and I really didn't appreciate being told about how disgusting the female 'oestrus' smelled.
I think the world Pheby created is wonderfully rich and detailed, and that gorgeous setting is probably what sustained me through the book, but it was a slog. There is an extensive glossary (100+ pages) at the end which explains a lot more about the world of Mordew which I intend to read at a later date.
The pacing was patchy, certainty in the second half of a book (which clocks in at over 500 pages) when it really needed to keep momentum. Some parts dragged, others seemed to be rushed through. There was also a very strange section written in a completely different style, and I'm not convinced the same information could not have been shown in keeping with the rest of the book.
Also the low level misogyny was starting to grate. Most femal characters (of which there were vanishingly few anyway) were manipulative sex workers and I really didn't appreciate being told about how disgusting the female 'oestrus' smelled.
I think the world Pheby created is wonderfully rich and detailed, and that gorgeous setting is probably what sustained me through the book, but it was a slog. There is an extensive glossary (100+ pages) at the end which explains a lot more about the world of Mordew which I intend to read at a later date.
juniperbranches's review against another edition
I kept waiting for the story to start and it just… didn’t.