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4.08 AVERAGE
4.08 AVERAGE
adventurous
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
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A solid middle of the road book. It took 200-250 pages to fully get into the story. I liked the world-building but not my favorite.
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
If you know the Ben Affleck smoking meme, that’s what I was throughout the entirety of this book. To put it bluntly, Crier’s War sucked for multiple reasons, and I honestly hated that because I have yet to read a book with a main LGBTQ+ couple that was disappointing. There’s a first for everything, I guess.
I have one (1) piece of praise for this book, and that is the normalized inclusion of LGBTQ+ folks in this fantasy world Varela has made. We see homophobia in all corners of media, even in fantasy and sci-fi, because it’s usually a plot point and the idea that homophobia wouldn’t exist is apparently bizarre. In Crier’s War, though, it’s nowhere to be found. There’s just as many same-sex relationships as straight ones, and there’s a non-binary character just casually introduced towards the end with no fuss at all. Seeing an author erase all traces of hatred against LGBTQ+ people is a really nice change of pace.
Unfortunately, that comes nowhere close to outshining all the negatives of this book.
The premise is that humans live in a world where Automae – very realistic and advanced cyborgs that are a product of human creation – have overtaken society. Humans are segregated and demeaned, while Automae live in luxury and safety. Crier, the Sovereign’s daughter, is an Automa with an abnormal amount of sympathy towards humans. Ayla is a human whose family was killed by a few evil Automae, so, naturally, she despises all Automae and refers to them exclusively as leeches. She, her best friend Benjy, and her mother-figure Rowan are scheming to become part of the human rebellion against Automae, and Ayla’s goal is to kill Crier. However, when she stumbles on the perfect opportunity to do this, she saves Crier’s life instead. In return, Crier asks her to be her handmaiden within the palace, and thus, the story begins.
My first complaint is the extremely thin world-building. While I can see this as an excuse to keep things simple and organized in the mind, there’s hardly any visualization or atmosphere. Varela’s writing doesn’t bring any vividness to the world; there’s no tangible contrast between different regions of the map. Some of the concepts were a bit weird, too, like the separation of humans and Automae. The divide wasn’t fully explained, and so when all the lore and history came into play, it made everything even more confusing because the timeline was so messy. We got little snippets of the world’s history, and that was a million times more intriguing than the actual story.
The plot was really repetitive and aimless. It read like every single other YA rebellion plot out there – there’s even a love triangle. There also wasn’t much in the way of logical structure. The beginning, middle, and end all had the same pacing and emotions, and because the events didn’t hold much significance, it all felt very circular.
And then there’s the characters. This is where the book completely falls apart. I can suffer a bad plot if I love the characters – hell, that’s what I do with almost every TV show I watch. But not one of these characters could save this book. First, there’s Crier. As a character, she honestly isn’t the worst out there. She’s extremely naive and has no depth at all, but her stale-bread personality is tolerable. I don’t have a lot to say about her simply because there isn’t much to her at all.
Ayla – I dislike Ayla so much. It’s the fact that she’s sixteen that blows the whole thing for me. One of her very first lines goes something like, “My family died in an Automae raid, so I hate all of them and they all deserve to burn. I feel no love – love is a weakness, something that I will never feel again. I will kill Crier and feel her blood on my hands and relish in it, and I will topple this entire empire and bring humans back to light. Anyways, I’m sixteen years old -” Girl, sit the hell down. Sure, you’ve gone through hard times. But you do not need to be acting like this much of a hard-ass just to purposely make your own life more miserable. And she’s so young. It’s just beyond unrealistic, and I absolutely hated it.
Not to mention the main relationship of the book. I so badly wanted to root for Ayla and Crier, but the way it all played out had no emotion at all, no real development, and no logic to the characters’ actions. The vibes went straight from enemies to oh, wait, I desire you (the amount of times the word ‘desire’ is used in this book is disgusting). There was barely any friendship built up because of the way the events panned out, and every ‘romantic’ interaction between Ayla and Crier was beyond forced. Crier’s emotions felt false; Ayla kept changing her mind about how she felt every single chapter. Their relationship just really lacked the foundations that a good enemies-to-lovers plot needs, and so it fell through.
The concept of Crier’s War is a strong one, but in execution it was weak and disappointing. Between the lack of in-depth character development, the messy plot, and the halfhearted attempt at inter-creature (?) romance, this book just didn’t live up to its potential at all.
I have one (1) piece of praise for this book, and that is the normalized inclusion of LGBTQ+ folks in this fantasy world Varela has made. We see homophobia in all corners of media, even in fantasy and sci-fi, because it’s usually a plot point and the idea that homophobia wouldn’t exist is apparently bizarre. In Crier’s War, though, it’s nowhere to be found. There’s just as many same-sex relationships as straight ones, and there’s a non-binary character just casually introduced towards the end with no fuss at all. Seeing an author erase all traces of hatred against LGBTQ+ people is a really nice change of pace.
Unfortunately, that comes nowhere close to outshining all the negatives of this book.
The premise is that humans live in a world where Automae – very realistic and advanced cyborgs that are a product of human creation – have overtaken society. Humans are segregated and demeaned, while Automae live in luxury and safety. Crier, the Sovereign’s daughter, is an Automa with an abnormal amount of sympathy towards humans. Ayla is a human whose family was killed by a few evil Automae, so, naturally, she despises all Automae and refers to them exclusively as leeches. She, her best friend Benjy, and her mother-figure Rowan are scheming to become part of the human rebellion against Automae, and Ayla’s goal is to kill Crier. However, when she stumbles on the perfect opportunity to do this, she saves Crier’s life instead. In return, Crier asks her to be her handmaiden within the palace, and thus, the story begins.
My first complaint is the extremely thin world-building. While I can see this as an excuse to keep things simple and organized in the mind, there’s hardly any visualization or atmosphere. Varela’s writing doesn’t bring any vividness to the world; there’s no tangible contrast between different regions of the map. Some of the concepts were a bit weird, too, like the separation of humans and Automae. The divide wasn’t fully explained, and so when all the lore and history came into play, it made everything even more confusing because the timeline was so messy. We got little snippets of the world’s history, and that was a million times more intriguing than the actual story.
The plot was really repetitive and aimless. It read like every single other YA rebellion plot out there – there’s even a love triangle. There also wasn’t much in the way of logical structure. The beginning, middle, and end all had the same pacing and emotions, and because the events didn’t hold much significance, it all felt very circular.
And then there’s the characters. This is where the book completely falls apart. I can suffer a bad plot if I love the characters – hell, that’s what I do with almost every TV show I watch. But not one of these characters could save this book. First, there’s Crier. As a character, she honestly isn’t the worst out there. She’s extremely naive and has no depth at all, but her stale-bread personality is tolerable. I don’t have a lot to say about her simply because there isn’t much to her at all.
Ayla – I dislike Ayla so much. It’s the fact that she’s sixteen that blows the whole thing for me. One of her very first lines goes something like, “My family died in an Automae raid, so I hate all of them and they all deserve to burn. I feel no love – love is a weakness, something that I will never feel again. I will kill Crier and feel her blood on my hands and relish in it, and I will topple this entire empire and bring humans back to light. Anyways, I’m sixteen years old -” Girl, sit the hell down. Sure, you’ve gone through hard times. But you do not need to be acting like this much of a hard-ass just to purposely make your own life more miserable. And she’s so young. It’s just beyond unrealistic, and I absolutely hated it.
Not to mention the main relationship of the book. I so badly wanted to root for Ayla and Crier, but the way it all played out had no emotion at all, no real development, and no logic to the characters’ actions. The vibes went straight from enemies to oh, wait, I desire you (the amount of times the word ‘desire’ is used in this book is disgusting). There was barely any friendship built up because of the way the events panned out, and every ‘romantic’ interaction between Ayla and Crier was beyond forced. Crier’s emotions felt false; Ayla kept changing her mind about how she felt every single chapter. Their relationship just really lacked the foundations that a good enemies-to-lovers plot needs, and so it fell through.
The concept of Crier’s War is a strong one, but in execution it was weak and disappointing. Between the lack of in-depth character development, the messy plot, and the halfhearted attempt at inter-creature (?) romance, this book just didn’t live up to its potential at all.
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
i have some issues with it ONLY A FEW (mostly with the romance) but it was very enjoyable nonetheless!!!!!
dark
mysterious
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
adventurous
emotional
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:
Yes
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Basic fantasy plot but gay!
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
fast-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