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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
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
hopeful
lighthearted
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
adventurous
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
relaxing
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:
No
This was … fine? I don’t know, as someone who grew up reading epic fantasy and honestly enjoys complicated world building and plots, the shift towards “cozy fantasy” doesn’t really work for me. It feels like a dumbing down and stripping of the genre, taking out a lot of things that make it unique in the interest of appealing to instagram. And it takes the more subtle messages of really good SFF which is to hold a mirror up to our society and critique it, and makes it so obvious as to be boring. Fantasy is political and thought provoking. There is a point of view, there is allegory, there are similarities between the fictional world and our own. A lot of people smarter and more well versed than I have talked about how making orcs the main character sounds great on the surface, but might ignore how much of modern day orcs are based in racism and antisemitism. So cozy fantasy that cuts out this framework and just wants to tell stories often misses the mark for me, because in an effort to be accessible or “cozy” it flattens itself.
Anyway, this book got a decent amount of hype, has a cute cover, and seems to be similar to other cozy fantasy like A Psalm for the Wild Built, the monk and robot books by Becky chambers. And we start off similar to that, with Tao a traveling teller of small fortunes. But where monk and robot manages to pack a massive punch of a novella about what it is to be human and yearn into a five hour audio book, this is more than double and still doesn’t know what it wants to say. Part of the issues is that Tao is not actually a teller of small fortunes, she is in fact a highly powerful Seerer who saw her fathers death as a child and therefore hid and ignored her powers. This is another way in which cozy fantasy often gets it wrong - you can’t be both a minor mage and an overpowered one without a lot of backstory, and that just wasn’t here. Go read T Kingfishers work instead, she literally has a book called Minor Mage that I liked much better, and it manages to prove that it’s not about the amount of magical talent you have, but how you choose to help others. Tao never manages to get to this point, instead capitulating to the guild so she can get riches and influence to help Mash, even though in the end they find his daughter by chance, and frankly by being a teller of small fortunes.
I need to add some spoiler tags but mobile makes it hard.
I mostly appreciated that Tao didn’t have a romance arc here, instead this is about her friends and her family. The relationship with her mother and stepfather I wish had more time to develop as it felt a little sketched in.
Tao is also constantly discriminated against in nearly every town they go to, ranging from states and double takes, to being kicked out. The world building is light on this, and why her homeland and new land are so separate. It serves some of the overarching narrative, but generally I feel like if you’re going to create racial tension in your fantasy world, have a reason for it.
I wouldn’t recommend this, but it’s also really not for me.
Anyway, this book got a decent amount of hype, has a cute cover, and seems to be similar to other cozy fantasy like A Psalm for the Wild Built, the monk and robot books by Becky chambers. And we start off similar to that, with Tao a traveling teller of small fortunes. But where monk and robot manages to pack a massive punch of a novella about what it is to be human and yearn into a five hour audio book, this is more than double and still doesn’t know what it wants to say. Part of the issues is that Tao is not actually a teller of small fortunes, she is in fact a highly powerful Seerer who saw her fathers death as a child and therefore hid and ignored her powers. This is another way in which cozy fantasy often gets it wrong - you can’t be both a minor mage and an overpowered one without a lot of backstory, and that just wasn’t here. Go read T Kingfishers work instead, she literally has a book called Minor Mage that I liked much better, and it manages to prove that it’s not about the amount of magical talent you have, but how you choose to help others. Tao never manages to get to this point, instead capitulating to the guild so she can get riches and influence to help Mash, even though in the end they find his daughter by chance, and frankly by being a teller of small fortunes.
I need to add some spoiler tags but mobile makes it hard.
I mostly appreciated that Tao didn’t have a romance arc here, instead this is about her friends and her family. The relationship with her mother and stepfather I wish had more time to develop as it felt a little sketched in.
Tao is also constantly discriminated against in nearly every town they go to, ranging from states and double takes, to being kicked out. The world building is light on this, and why her homeland and new land are so separate. It serves some of the overarching narrative, but generally I feel like if you’re going to create racial tension in your fantasy world, have a reason for it.
I wouldn’t recommend this, but it’s also really not for me.
adventurous
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
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
This was just the sort of cozy, for fun read I needed. Felt just the right level of interesting, without feeling terribly high stakes.
adventurous
hopeful
lighthearted
relaxing
slow-paced
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
adventurous
hopeful
lighthearted
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No