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sarah984's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
tense
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
4.0
This book is the beginning of an epic fantasy series, but the "epic" portions were my least favourite parts. I am not invested at all in the squabbles over which of the three God-King candidates is legitimate, or the weird demon politics across the sea. However, the book shines in more slice-of-life sections where people from two disparate cultures need to learn to live side by side if they want to survive.
I thought the different cultures were well written and felt realistic even though they were also clearly designed to have rough edges that would catch on one another. The homophobia from one of the POV characters was a little much for me personally though. It's challenged in the text but it's really violent and the narrative kind of excuses it which annoyed me.
I can see a few obvious plot setups for the sequel that made me groan (there is one subplot in particular that requires a major character to be really careless about something extremely important in a way that seems contrived and uncharacteristic that will really bug me if it's a major feature in the sequel) but overall it left me feeling glad I read it.
I thought the different cultures were well written and felt realistic even though they were also clearly designed to have rough edges that would catch on one another. The homophobia from one of the POV characters was a little much for me personally though. It's challenged in the text but it's really violent and the narrative kind of excuses it which annoyed me.
I can see a few obvious plot setups for the sequel that made me groan (there is one subplot in particular that requires a major character to be really careless about something extremely important in a way that seems contrived and uncharacteristic that will really bug me if it's a major feature in the sequel) but overall it left me feeling glad I read it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, War, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Alcohol, Animal death, Child death, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Medical content, Misogyny, Murder, Sexual content, and Suicide
Minor: Dysphoria, Kidnapping, Outing, Pregnancy, and Transphobia
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