Reviews tagging 'Death'

Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson

63 reviews

corallydeer's review

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adventurous dark hopeful lighthearted mysterious 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

5.0

This was a great read! I had heard that Rogerson was a phenomenal writer and I heavily agree after this first foray into her works. I loved her writing style and thought it was a great blend of fairly direct writing with prose-y styles. I loved the characters and the world so much; the banter between the revenant and Artemisia was always a great time and the world they existed in felt so unique and fresh. The beginning felt a bit slow to me, so I was sitting more at a four-star rating for a while, but the second half of the book really picked up and suddenly I felt like I couldn't put it down and now I even want to reread it! The second half quickly shot the book up to a full five-star rating for me and I can't wait to read more of Rogerson's works now!

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crystalisreading's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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cedartonk's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5


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fraeyalise's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I really really liked this book. It hit a little too close to home sometimes but I love how it ended. 

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queer_bookwyrm's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious 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? No

5.0

5 ⭐ CW: Violence, blood, self-harm, death, suicide mention, immolation 

Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson is a YA standalone fantasy. This is the second book I've read by this author, and it didn't disappoint! I wasn't sure what to think at first, but I quickly fell in love. Our MC has PTSD and has disabled hands. I also suspect that she is also neurodivergent and possibly aroace, but these are really just headcanons. 

We follow Artemisia, a novice nun with scars on her hands and the official Creepy Weird Girl of her cohort. When Confessor Leander comes to tests the novices for their placements, the convent is besieged by thralls (people being possessed by spirits), and Artemisia is given a powerful tool called a Saint's Relic containing a Revenant. Spirits are dangerous, and it takes training to be able to control them instead of the other way around, but Artemisia finds that her revenant isn't so bad. 

I loved the relationship between Artemisia and the Revenant. Because of her PTSD, Artemisia is disconnected to her body, so it takes having the revenant inside her I'm order for her to do self-care such as feeding herself, sleeping, and drinking water. The revenant reminds her that her body also carries her and she should take care of it. The Revenant had great growth. It was sarcastic, cranky, and sassy, but a good compliment to Artemisia. I found the foil of the character Leander to be fascinating as well. He seemed to be a mirror, if flawed, to Artemisia. The twist came out of nowhere! I never expect it, and it was wonderful (well, not for the characters 😆) 

I loved seeing a world with so many powerful women, especially in a religious sense. Even their god is a Lady. Many powerful nuns. Don't mess with nuns.  We get a lot of themes about consent, especially in regard to binding spirits and using them. It was a great magic system, and I wish I could stay in the world a little bit longer.

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vagorsol's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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jazzblue's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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bree_h_reads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

I was really excited to read Vespertine after reading an Enchantment of Ravens and seeing the higher overall rating for this. While I still enjoyed it and will definitely be continuing the series, there were some areas I found a bit lacking.

To start, I really enjoyed the characters. I think every one of them felt fairly well rounded and I enjoyed the scenes they were in. I quickly got attached with the limited page time provided to the secondary characters. Seeing how they interacted with each other and the implied off page interactions made them feel alive. The big three being Artemisia, the Reverent, and Leander (at least for me). I loved the dynamic between Artemisia and the Revenant, watching it grow from begrudging ally-ship to genuine care and concern. Leander and Artemisia’s dynamic too was extremely interesting, reading how they played off of and reas each other. I hope to see more of their dynamic in the future!

In contrast to the interesting characters, I found the flow of the story and the reveal of plot twist to be a bit lacking, though not by much. While overall I think the story flowed fairly well, the foreshadowing and build to the plot twist is where it fell short. I figured it out maybe part way through the book, not because of any hints dropped by the text itself, but because that’s just how these books go. If the book had built up to the reveal and better left the hints, then it would have been up a star rating. Unfortunately, the twist is fairly easy to figure out if you’re at all familiar with popular trends in fantasy right now.

The world building was something else I largely enjoyed. While it could be a bit info dump-y at times, overall I found the delivery to be concise and within what the reader needed to know without bogging things down. There were only a couple details I thought were a bit strange given the overall world and religion. There’s a comment made in the book about the world only viewing women as something that can either become a nun or pop out babies. However, this seems somewhat out of sync with the rest of the world. They worship a goddess, women are the major players in their church, they have a young woman as they head of the church, the major (if not all) saints are women, and the devil figure is a man. It seems strange to me that the oppression of women it called out when the world seems to be dominated by them. I do understand that this is inspired by Joan of Arc and wanting to make a commentary on the treatment of women. It also feels asynchronies with the rest of the work where it never seems like women are viewed in this way. It took me out of it, and while (again) I understand wanting to make a point on how our society viewed/views and treats women the line took me out of the story for a bit.

I also think some of the themes could have been better explored. Artemisia is a nun, raised in a fairly sequestered convent who is quickly persecuted by the higher ups in her religion once she takes control of a powerful relic and saves several people. Throughout the book it feels like things are being setup for Artemisia and other characters to explore their feelings on the religion, what they’re taught, religious trauma, and corruption within the hierarchy. Yet it never really pulls at those strings and dives into them. Considering how the book is setup and what seems to be implied throughout the text, I wish it were a larger focus. While I don’t expect Artemisia to abandon her religion, I wish more time had been given to explore the issues within it. Hopefully it’s something we’ll get more of in later books, assuming the talk of a series is true.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and will happily read the others if/once they come out. I do, however, think this book could have benefited from a few more revisions and being a little bit longer to better build up to twist and explore themes.

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sonygaystation's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

The character growth in this book was so *chef’s kiss*!!! Also the revenant has my whole heart

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pointeshoebookworm's review against another edition

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adventurous funny sad 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

5.0


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