Reviews

At times a dense and even exhausting read, but this book’s (many) moments of poetic clarity make it worth it. The explorations of the difference and distance between memory and history and the-often violent- mundanity of distilling one into the other was so well done. For those who enjoy fantasy but are ambivalent about the tropes of the genre and are interested in seeing them lovingly yet deftly upset and explored.

Looking forward to reading more by this author

craftysilicate's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

rodneywilhite's review

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5.0

This is maybe my favorite novel I've read in years. The way the narrative unfolds (and doesn't unfold) is so beautiful.

I think there are some commonalities with Faulkner in how the past and present are consistently intruding upon one another, and how time is more like an ebb and flow that occasionally washes over the story than a linear sequence of events. It also shares with The Sound and the Fury the structure of four personas telling the same story, each of them revising, clarifying, and complicating it.

However, and I mean this sincerely, Samatar has a much more deft touch than Faulkner and a better ear for the poetic.

I could go on and on, but this is such a formally excellent book, you just gotta read it yourself.

lezreadalot's review against another edition

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5.0

I did it because I had to, because human beings cannot live without history.

4.5 stars. N. K. Jemisin's blurb at the front of this book says something to the effect of, "You need to read this very slowly and carefully and when you're finished you need to read it again." And I completely agree with that. And I don't think that's a good thing. I had to read the first part of this book about three times before the plot and the writing really started sinking into my head. That's not a compliment. I love when I read a line of prose and I immediately want to reread it because it's so beautiful and striking and impactful; I hate when I have to do it because I literally couldn't parse it. Maybe it says something more about my own reading comprehension than it says anything about the book, but this kind of density feels more hostile than anything. Not just the writing, but the fact that there was no context, and lots of time I just felt adrift as a reader. I hate info-dumping, but give me something. Lovely writing is the surest form of kryptonite for me, and it can really elevate my enjoyment of a book. But inscrutability does not equate to beauty! I'm right and I should say it! Fight me about it!

The swordmaiden wears her loyalty like a necklace of dead stars. Their worth is eternal, although they no longer shine.

Uh, all that aside... I really fucking love this book lol. Four women, one rebellion and an incomparably wonderful and well-woven story. This is the kind of fantasy that I yearn for, the kind of ideas and prose and beauty that make me really enjoy reading. The world and the world-building are complex, but once you start to peel back the layers and get into the intricacies of the families and relationships, the religion and gods, the history and the people, the different tribes... the amalgamation of it all is really, really something. I really liked all the characters and the way we interrogated this war through their histories and their lives and their actions, but once I started to understand things, the plot really really shone for me. Things really picked up for me in Part Two when we started to go more in depth into the different forms of worship in this world. The Stone as a concept is so interesting to me, and I feel like I would have liked to spend even more time with it. While I did not enjoy the pace at which we were given information about the actual characters who we were following, I do think that some of the reveals about the history and mythology of the world were really well done, and we slowly learned about things that became more and more impactful for both the characters and the story in a huge way. The book is divided into four parts, and each of them have their slow moments that drag on a little bit, but they all did manage to grab me back in the end. Thematically, this book just went to some places that I absolutely eat up and I adored the ending. There's often a moment in books when the significance of the title hits you, and that moment in this book was so, so good.

Your body remembers war. This body I love. War has shaped the beloved body.

I had my ups and downs with the writing, but this is truly, truly artistic in a lot of ways. Some of those ways didn't really work for me. The author has a tendency of sort of slipping into a flashback, in the middle of a paragraph, sometimes in the middle of a sentence, so much so that you're not actually sure where you are in terms of time. That gets a little frustrating sometimes, even though I know it's deliberate and done for style. There were a few sections where she eschewed quotation marks, which, I never care the reason why an author chooses to do that, it's just always annoying. But the barebones writing, the essential mechanical prose, certain phrases she would use, certain descriptions that were so awesomely vivid... the writing really was sublime. She often starts sentences with 'and', seemingly incongruously, but it gives a sense of continuance and musicality that I really ended up liking.

I would have swallowed her whole if it meant I could take her with me.

I should note that getting the e-book really helped me start this again, continue it and ultimately finish it. It was just easier having the opportunity to search for names that might have only cropped up a few times before, or find the first time that a certain subject was brought up, or a certain place, and a lot of things that would have been more difficult with only the physical book. I really don't think this book would have lost anything if it had just been clearer on some of the details of the world-building. It would have been just as beautiful and complex. So I really cannot compliment it entirely for its style. But I still enjoyed it so much, in a way I don't even know how to explain. Do I recommend it? That depends on what kind of reader you are and how much patience you have. But this was really something special and I'm super glad that I read it.

Content warnings:

Spoiler

war, death, descriptions of torture

Dasya, the next time you open your eyes—say yes.

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