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jennyfer's review
4.0
This is one of my favourite books, a go-to comfort read when times are tough. I recieved a copy of The Ill Made Mute when it was first published, and it's such a wonderful story.
The story opens with a creature tearing through the forest, in fear of unknown pursuers. They fall, injured, into a pit, into darkness. The creature is rescued, and turns out to be a youth, broken, disfigured, amnesiac and mute. Earning their keep in the bowels of a Relayer Tower, the youth dreams of freedom, and yearns to find a past.
Steeped in Celtic folklore, this high fantasy novel is brimming with myth and magic, and the world of Faerie hidden just behind closed doors.
The book does have it's faults, I will grant that. Dart-Thornton has a love of words and lists and in this book happily ennumerates every item in descriptive passages, but this is reined in in later books in the series. I will forgive the wordiness for the story itself - a bit Cinderella, a bit Tolkien - a good escapist fantasy romance adventure.
The story opens with a creature tearing through the forest, in fear of unknown pursuers. They fall, injured, into a pit, into darkness. The creature is rescued, and turns out to be a youth, broken, disfigured, amnesiac and mute. Earning their keep in the bowels of a Relayer Tower, the youth dreams of freedom, and yearns to find a past.
Steeped in Celtic folklore, this high fantasy novel is brimming with myth and magic, and the world of Faerie hidden just behind closed doors.
The book does have it's faults, I will grant that. Dart-Thornton has a love of words and lists and in this book happily ennumerates every item in descriptive passages, but this is reined in in later books in the series. I will forgive the wordiness for the story itself - a bit Cinderella, a bit Tolkien - a good escapist fantasy romance adventure.
quelleadar's review
adventurous
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
jennyfer's review against another edition
4.0
This is one of my favourite books, a go-to comfort read when times are tough. I recieved a copy of The Ill Made Mute when it was first published, and it's such a wonderful story.
The story opens with a creature tearing through the forest, in fear of unknown pursuers. They fall, injured, into a pit, into darkness. The creature is rescued, and turns out to be a youth, broken, disfigured, amnesiac and mute. Earning their keep in the bowels of a Relayer Tower, the youth dreams of freedom, and yearns to find a past.
Steeped in Celtic folklore, this high fantasy novel is brimming with myth and magic, and the world of Faerie hidden just behind closed doors.
The book does have it's faults, I will grant that. Dart-Thornton has a love of words and lists and in this book happily ennumerates every item in descriptive passages, but this is reined in in later books in the series. I will forgive the wordiness for the story itself - a bit Cinderella, a bit Tolkien - a good escapist fantasy romance adventure.
The story opens with a creature tearing through the forest, in fear of unknown pursuers. They fall, injured, into a pit, into darkness. The creature is rescued, and turns out to be a youth, broken, disfigured, amnesiac and mute. Earning their keep in the bowels of a Relayer Tower, the youth dreams of freedom, and yearns to find a past.
Steeped in Celtic folklore, this high fantasy novel is brimming with myth and magic, and the world of Faerie hidden just behind closed doors.
The book does have it's faults, I will grant that. Dart-Thornton has a love of words and lists and in this book happily ennumerates every item in descriptive passages, but this is reined in in later books in the series. I will forgive the wordiness for the story itself - a bit Cinderella, a bit Tolkien - a good escapist fantasy romance adventure.
nwhyte's review against another edition
http://nhw.livejournal.com/1085597.html[return][return] found it somewhat tough going. It is a fantasy novel about a disfigured, voiceless youth who endures a prolonged quest adventure in the course of achieving full adulthood. The adventures are decently enough recounted, and take us through a succession of traditional fantasy locales each of which has its own local twist - the castle, the ship, the treasure cave, the city, the enchanted forest; and the world is subject to peculiar "unstorms", disturbances in the local reality. I wasn't so engaged or convinced by the human geography of the world, and if anything a bit annoyed by Dart-Thornton saving the info-dumping to the middle of the book, while at the start there are lots of characters telling long and somewhat tedious stories to each other without really advancing the plot. I struggled through to the end but won't bother tracking down the others in the series. Passes the Bechdel test with a section where two female characters are kidnapped and locked up together.
eecee's review against another edition
5.0
Just reread the Bitterbynde trilogy (February 2015). Will put here a review for all three, so warning, spoiler alert.
First off the bat, I just wanted to say that these books are still one of my favourite ever fantasy series. Hang on to that while I get a couple of things that bothered me off my chest!
Why that ending? Why?! Also, why does every character she's ever met have to come to the happy endings? Also, do we really need to hear about how beautiful Thorn is that many times? Why do all the characters need to be so beautiful? The first book was largely interesting because there was less beauty going around and being a major focus of everything.
Final gripe - as Imrhien and Tahquil I found the heroine to often be quite proactive and assertive, but as Rohain and Ashalind she often came across as very reactive, happy to let others, especially Thorn, make her decisions for her.
My favourite thing about this series is definitely the setting and the way Cecilia Dart-Thornton wove stories from folklore into this story - it is absolutely captivating and magical and beautiful. CDT's language is evocative and wonderful. Waiting for the next story about the characters' meetings and interactions with wights kept me turning the pages almost more than the story itself.
The Ill-Made Mute was my favourite of the three, especially when Imrhien is travelling through the forest with Sianadh - lots of wights, adventures, Imrhien is not lovestruck and wimpy, and no going on and on about how beautiful Thorn is or how wonderfully superior the (frankly very much less interesting and less imaginative than wights) Faeren are.
First off the bat, I just wanted to say that these books are still one of my favourite ever fantasy series. Hang on to that while I get a couple of things that bothered me off my chest!
Why that ending? Why?! Also, why does every character she's ever met have to come to the happy endings? Also, do we really need to hear about how beautiful Thorn is that many times? Why do all the characters need to be so beautiful? The first book was largely interesting because there was less beauty going around and being a major focus of everything.
Final gripe - as Imrhien and Tahquil I found the heroine to often be quite proactive and assertive, but as Rohain and Ashalind she often came across as very reactive, happy to let others, especially Thorn, make her decisions for her.
My favourite thing about this series is definitely the setting and the way Cecilia Dart-Thornton wove stories from folklore into this story - it is absolutely captivating and magical and beautiful. CDT's language is evocative and wonderful. Waiting for the next story about the characters' meetings and interactions with wights kept me turning the pages almost more than the story itself.
The Ill-Made Mute was my favourite of the three, especially when Imrhien is travelling through the forest with Sianadh - lots of wights, adventures, Imrhien is not lovestruck and wimpy, and no going on and on about how beautiful Thorn is or how wonderfully superior the (frankly very much less interesting and less imaginative than wights) Faeren are.
helenid's review
3.0
Bit of a slow start and at times the description is overwhelming, but the story does grip. I just don't need to know the entire contents of store rooms.
frederica49's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
slow-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
4.5