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4.26 AVERAGE
4.26 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
Me encantó. ¿Quizá un poco abrupto el final? Pero ay. Vivo por y para ESA historia de amor.
adventurous
challenging
funny
tense
medium-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:
Complicated
adventurous
dark
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
adventurous
slow-paced
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
(spoilers ahead)
Ugh. I wanted to love this because I heard good things about it, but...
Positives: I was intrigued by the religion/cultural aspect. And the politics.
Ead (and maybe Loth?) were ok as characters. I appreciate the author's efforts in trying to build the world and its people.
Diverse characters!
I also liked that it seemed to take inspiration from non-western mythology as well. The writing is not too bad.
Negatives: sigh, this book is soooo unnecessarily long.
The beginning was a slog, you get hit with 15 characters all at once and different places and it can get a little confusing. While there were a lot of descriptive parts, still I found it hard to picture the details of this world.
The story got a little more engaging and better after a while, but then at about 50-60% it started being a bit boring again. I can't pinpoint why exactly, technically lots happened, but not much of it was truly engaging. Characters die and you don't care too much, and people start banding together in a slightly-too-convenient way, which kinda meant I felt there were no stakes left. Also a lot of storylines were picked up and just abandoned, like you tell me all about the dragon rider friendships and rivalries and it seems to be setting up to something and then... Forget about it for half the book?
Also it was annoying to me how Ead and Tané had almost parallel storylines at the start (work hard - get where you want to be - fall from grace - try to regain it all)
I skimmed the rest of the book just to get to the end :( so overall, it wasn't the worst book and I liked the idea of it, but was just disappointed I didn't love it, so clearly not for me!
Ugh. I wanted to love this because I heard good things about it, but...
Positives: I was intrigued by the religion/cultural aspect. And the politics.
Ead (and maybe Loth?) were ok as characters. I appreciate the author's efforts in trying to build the world and its people.
Diverse characters!
I also liked that it seemed to take inspiration from non-western mythology as well. The writing is not too bad.
Negatives: sigh, this book is soooo unnecessarily long.
The beginning was a slog, you get hit with 15 characters all at once and different places and it can get a little confusing. While there were a lot of descriptive parts, still I found it hard to picture the details of this world.
The story got a little more engaging and better after a while, but then at about 50-60% it started being a bit boring again. I can't pinpoint why exactly, technically lots happened, but not much of it was truly engaging. Characters die and you don't care too much, and people start banding together in a slightly-too-convenient way, which kinda meant I felt there were no stakes left. Also a lot of storylines were picked up and just abandoned, like you tell me all about the dragon rider friendships and rivalries and it seems to be setting up to something and then... Forget about it for half the book?
Also it was annoying to me how Ead and Tané had almost parallel storylines at the start (work hard - get where you want to be - fall from grace - try to regain it all)
I skimmed the rest of the book just to get to the end :( so overall, it wasn't the worst book and I liked the idea of it, but was just disappointed I didn't love it, so clearly not for me!
adventurous
challenging
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-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:
Complicated
still a 5-star comfort read for me and i appreciated the religious themes way more this time around. "If this is to work, I must do my part and pray for it." is one of my favorite lines.
buttttt i also have a lot of questions about the semi-colorblindness of this book and the themes of plague, foreigner, heretic, etc. so you have people like the Becks who are said to have very dark skin and are nobles in Inys, but we also can't pretend that Inys isn't clearly based off of England...and it seems like only Inys has a diverse population while people in the rest of the world tend to look like those around them. even down to the geography and linguistics the world in this book is based off of real countries and vague ideas of cultures that exist in real life, so I'm not sure you can have it both ways and try some progressive, colorblind fantasy thing while also basing everything off real life where racial categories exist. especially when the plot depends on the Great Edict, which is a xenophobic law rooted in fear of the outsider (on both sides of the Abyss) who may bring both physical disease and spiritual evil. i think the book would be a million times better if it actually tried to speak to our understanding of race because the plot is set up well for it, but i'm also unsurprised that a white British author didn't see the need for that.
for me personally my gripes about all of that don't take away from this being an amazing book, and it more so leaves me curious as someone who doesn't read a lot of fantasy about what this genre can do
buttttt i also have a lot of questions about the semi-colorblindness of this book and the themes of plague, foreigner, heretic, etc. so you have people like the Becks who are said to have very dark skin and are nobles in Inys, but we also can't pretend that Inys isn't clearly based off of England...and it seems like only Inys has a diverse population while people in the rest of the world tend to look like those around them. even down to the geography and linguistics the world in this book is based off of real countries and vague ideas of cultures that exist in real life, so I'm not sure you can have it both ways and try some progressive, colorblind fantasy thing while also basing everything off real life where racial categories exist. especially when the plot depends on the Great Edict, which is a xenophobic law rooted in fear of the outsider (on both sides of the Abyss) who may bring both physical disease and spiritual evil. i think the book would be a million times better if it actually tried to speak to our understanding of race because the plot is set up well for it, but i'm also unsurprised that a white British author didn't see the need for that.
for me personally my gripes about all of that don't take away from this being an amazing book, and it more so leaves me curious as someone who doesn't read a lot of fantasy about what this genre can do
medium-paced
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
medium-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