Reviews - A Little Hatred | The StoryGraph

1.87k reviews for:

A Little Hatred

Joe Abercrombie

4.41 AVERAGE

entanglednovels's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Wow! What a way to start the trilogy off with a bang. So many interesting characters and interesting take on the European inspired fantasy world. Really looking forward to the sequel. I can sense that they have a big storm comin’.

boredbookman's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark 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: Complicated

motherofbooks93's review against another edition

5.0

“The goal of government, you see,” and the Arch Lector prodded at the air with his bony forefinger, “is to load the unhappiness onto those least able to make you suffer for it.”

I am finally here, the last series (at least for the moment) in the First Law world. I heard a lot of people say this was one of the best books in the series and I agree.

A Little Hatred is interesting because it really brings the series to the future, we are now in the industrial revolution and it has a direct effect on what is happening in the world. The book follows a few different characters and most of them are the children of characters we know and love from the previous First Law books. So you could technically read this without ever having read the other books in the series, but I genuinely feel like you would be missing out on some great history of some of the characters you meet in this book.

Leo dan Brock is the son of Lady Finree of Angland and Harod dan Brock and he is on a mission to prove himself. He plans on doing this by attempting to defeat Stour Nightfall, the son of Black Calder. I liked Leo, but you could tell how insecure he is and that has a lot to do with the fact that he feels that his mom won’t let him prove himself. He makes quite a few questionable decisions, but I do think that he is a good person. It also appeared that he was kind of working through some of his feelings on sexuality, which was interesting and something new to see from Abercrombie. Leo is hoping to depend on Prince Orso, but Orso has his own problems.

Prince Orso is the son of King Jezal and he is a bit of a disappointment, especially to his mom. He is a prince with a lot to prove and isn’t doing the best job of it to be honest. He is also in a kind of relationship with Glokta’s daughter, Savine, who I adored. Savine is everything you would expect a child of Glokta to be. She’s intelligent, resourceful and has a witty sense of humor. You almost question what she sees in Orso because she could probably do better. Savine is a woman living in a world that was made for powerful men, but she manages to hold her own, which is one of the reasons I loved her.

“Funny how, whenever men talked about freedom, they never really meant for the women."

Speaking of great female characters, there is also Rikke, the daughter of the Dogman, and she has this gift (although, she would consider it a curse) called the long eye. This eye allows her to see visions of the future, but most of them are just symbols and she doesn’t know what they mean most of the time. She is also what you would expect the Dogman’s daughter to be like and that is a compliment, because I quite enjoyed her character.

We all know that Abercrombie does characters exceptionally well, but where he also shines in this series is with the politics. A lot has changed in this world. Machines have been created and are putting people out of jobs, and they are revolting against this. There is this rebellion group called the Breakers who are on a mission to fight back against the use of these machines and the rich people and government officials, who are behind them.

While politics have always been something that Abercrombie has talked about in his stories, I feel like this is the most political he has been. A lot of this mirrors what happened in our world around the industrial revolution age and the same fears and concerns that people here had back then, the people of Adua have in this story. It was so interesting to see how the people in this world reacted to this happening and there are a lot of great conversations being had about the government and how these machines really put people in bad situations and how the fallout of these bad situations happening, hurts the people at the bottom.

“When one man knowingly kills another, they call it murder! When society causes the deaths of thousands, they shrug and call it a fact of life.”

I see some readers having a problem with the more heavy political aspects of the story, but I don’t know what to tell them because most fantasy books are political and maybe they haven’t been paying attention. This is not any more political than any other fantasy book I’ve read. Either way, the political angle was expected and necessary if you’re going to be talking about the industrial age and the things (good and bad) it brought.

As if this book couldn’t get any better, we get slapped with an ending that had me thinking, “What are they going to do now and why do I feel like a certain magi had something to do with it?”

I am always amazed to see how an author grows and changes and I can confidently say that even if you didn’t enjoy the First Law trilogy, I think it is worth continuing on to get to this one. I really enjoyed that first series, but even I can admit that this one is miles better. You get the same great character work, but the world building and political intrigue evolves and grows into a true work of beauty.

moonstruckkingdom's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous dark funny tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

4.44/5

dani81886's review against another edition

3.0

reminiscent of the first series but without the charm. kind of a repeat - not sure i will continue. i understand the grimdark philosophy that like nothing changes, but the characters are all largely the same. not terrible, not great.

roryalan's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous dark funny lighthearted tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

It's been a while since I've read Joe Abercrombie's previous trilogy, The First Law, but so far I like this just as much.

Book Summary:

We have several different perspectives here but the main ones are Leo, Prince Orso (son of Jezal from The First Law), Rikke (daughter of the dogman), Broad, and Savine (ostensibly the daughter of Glokta). We see some returning characters from the first law trilogy but mostly we're focusing on the next generation at a time when there is much industrialization and progress in Adua.

These characters grow, form relationships, and fight for their own survival throughout the book while dealing with a war with the northmen, an uprising from the laborers, a quite a lot of political maneuvering.

As with The First Law, this first book seems to be mostly setup, getting to know the characters and establishing relationships.

Dependence:

This book is the first in a trilogy and doesn't really have a solid ending. Of course the book ends, but it doesn't resolve many of the plot threads that have been opened. So, you're going to need to read the remaining books if you want a full story with an ending.

Also, many of the main characters are the children of characters from The First Law trilogy, plus we see a number of returning characters. While you don't need to read the previous trilogy to understand what's going on here, I think it adds a lot of useful context and I would definitely recommend it.

Characters:

As is usual for the author, the characters are fantastic. They never have plot armor, they're down-to-earth and believable, they're all flawed, etc. I also like their senses of humor; it's a fairly sarcastic, low-brow type of humor as opposed to something like a Shallan's quippy word-play humor. Even when a character sucks, it makes sense; no one is just the pure hero or the dark lord type.

However, there are so many characters that some of them (especially side characters) start to blur together. For example, I don't really remember any of Leo's friends, any of the people that hung around Stour, etc. I'm assuming we will lose some of the perspectives going forward which will narrow the scope, but it took some effort in this book to keep track of who everyone is.

Plot:

The plot is interesting, believable, but I think it mostly serves as a series of situations to put the characters in and let us see what they do.

Magic System:

There was little-to-no magic. Rikke has the "long eye" which ostensibly allows her to see a little ways into the future, but thats about it. Her "gift" also came with significant downsides, so she wasn't able to just magic their problems away.

World:

The world is a pretty standard European fantasy world at the start of there industrial era from what we see in this book. Perhaps they'll leave the city and we'll see more of the world in subsequent books.

Pacing:

The book is moderately paced, and I don't think it ever goes too fast or becomes a slog.

Writing:

The writing is very straightforward, with lots of humor and sarcasm. I don't think most adults will ever need a thesaurus at any point when reading this book. The writing is appropriate for the characters and tone that the author is trying to convey.

Comparisons:

This book is very similar to the previous trilogy. The characters, tone, etc. are pretty much the same and this is also a very character-driven story. So whether you like or dislike The First Law, you'll probably feel the same about this one.