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mimimac's review against another edition
emotional
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? Yes
2.5
So this book was not at all like what I expected!
The romance was great, I really like the trope involved & how the relationship ends up. The portrayal of Kadou’s anxiety was extremely well done & very authentic in my option/experience. Finally I found the progressive world to be refreshing, with the usual gender & sexuality stereotypes found in medieval based worlds completely gone.
However, there were quite a few issues for me that I found hard to overlook after a while. The pacing was very slow especially in the middle & not a lot actually happened. The plot was flimsy at best with the villains having no motive for the crimes, it all started with what I thought would be an intriguing political story line full of twists & turns but ended up completely flopping with no depth. It’s almost like the author couldn’t work out how to finish the idea, so just went with the most obvious route & forced everything to fit.
The world building was non-existent, beyond being told it is based on the Ottoman Empire before starting, outside of the clothes & shoes, there are no real indicators of what the world is like. We get a few descriptions of the current weather & some floors, but that’s pretty much it. Also it’s thrown in at one point that there’s 2 moons, but not entirely sure why we are told that as it’s not in any way relevant or influences the story.
The constant internal monologue of both Kadou & Evemer got very tedious very quickly. I lost track of the amount of times you read about them liking the other one but thinking the other one doesn’t like them back & deciding to “nobly” decide not to do anything.
Finally, this is marketed as fantasy, which I guess it is in the loosest possible way. The fantasy element (the touch-tasting), is so minor it may as well not have been included. It could have been a really interesting idea, but again seemed to fall flat with very little real need for it to be included.
Thank you to Tor & Netgalley for the opportunity to review this ARC.
Content Warnings
Minor: Death of parent
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