Reviews

Assassin of Reality by Marina Dyachenko, Sergey Dyachenko

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nzxhrx's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

dacha's review

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

squirrelsohno's review against another edition

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2.0

2.5/5

So disappointing! This book made zero sense, but while the first book also made zero sense, it was still readable and interesting. This was just boring zero sense.

mamaquiereleer's review

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adventurous dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

meganpbell's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

This sequel to the mind-bending Eastern European dark academia fantasy Vita Nostra is a bit of a slog, but I was glad for the chance to immerse myself again in the world of Sasha Samokhina, the Institute of Special Technologies, and the Great Speech. There really is no stranger linguistic magic system or higher philosophical stakes than in this series—I’m hoping this installment just suffered from Middle Book Syndrome.

Content Warnings

sonice's review against another edition

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2.0

2.5 stars. Not anywhere near the greatness of Vita Nostra, and it's mostly because there's just no mystery here. The first one was a real mind bender, and it kept you hooked by giving you just a little bit of info (abstract and surreal as it was) at a time, with an ending that cranked up the heat to leave your brain a melted grey puddle. In AoR, we know what's happening from go - and the story kinda just caries along like that. Can our hero do the thing without fucking up the other thing? Find out on the next episode of Vita Nostra Z!

The ending was fine. I hate putting it that way, but I don't know what else to say. It leaves a bit up to the reader to decide, and that's cool, but the problem is that it's all so vague that I don't care. I also understand that this is the last part of the story, no VN3 coming, that's all folks.

IMO Vita Nostra is better left as a standalone, and I wouldn't necessarily recommend that fans of that novel read this one. We get no real answers, and the juice is barely worth the squeeze.