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3.26 AVERAGE
3.26 AVERAGE
3.5* upped to 4
I had high expectations for this story as the blurb was fascinating and loved the description of Shade.
That said I think my expectations were too high and I didn't like Shade.
It's quite fast pace, entertaining, but the characters are somehow lacking personality and Shade was quite unlikeable.
I liked the world building but it seemed a mix of romantic fantasy and grim-dark. Lot of potential but some more character development would have helped.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine
I had high expectations for this story as the blurb was fascinating and loved the description of Shade.
That said I think my expectations were too high and I didn't like Shade.
It's quite fast pace, entertaining, but the characters are somehow lacking personality and Shade was quite unlikeable.
I liked the world building but it seemed a mix of romantic fantasy and grim-dark. Lot of potential but some more character development would have helped.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine
Felt like it was trying too hard to be an "I'm not like other girls" fantasy
An intriguing dystopian world is the setting for this debut fantasy novel. The world of Malavita has been destroyed in a magical war and the only way that humans can survive is within veils that protect life. Shade Nox is a powerful blood witch who wants to create a new veil to protect her people. The Empire wants to create a new veil so that it can exploit the natural resources of the land and sends an imperial envoy to work towards this. On the other side are the powerful blood wizards and the church who will do anything to prevent Shade from succeeding.
I loved the world building and the idea of the veils. The barren world outside the veils is well imagined and contrasts well with life within the veil. The magic system is imaginative although I find the idea of cutting yourself to provide blood for the magic a bit unpleasant. That aspect of the book is quite dark especially towards the end.
Shade is certainly a memorable character. She was single minded and determined to achieve her goals despite begin thwarted at every turn. I also liked the imperial envoy, Raidan Mad and his story arc was probably the most interesting until the final third when it suddenly became less believable. The three main characters are well fleshed out but other characters, although important to the story, seem a bit 2D. There is a bit of romance which mainly remains unfulfilled and it will be interesting to see where the author takes this in any future novels.
This was a fast paced novel with lots of action and possibly my main issue is that for me, it was almost too pacy and some of the action needed a bit more build up.
This was a good debut and I would certainly be prepared to read any future novels in this series. Thank you to Net Galley and the publishers, Angry Robot, for providing me with this advance copy in exchange for this honest review.
I loved the world building and the idea of the veils. The barren world outside the veils is well imagined and contrasts well with life within the veil. The magic system is imaginative although I find the idea of cutting yourself to provide blood for the magic a bit unpleasant. That aspect of the book is quite dark especially towards the end.
Shade is certainly a memorable character. She was single minded and determined to achieve her goals despite begin thwarted at every turn. I also liked the imperial envoy, Raidan Mad and his story arc was probably the most interesting until the final third when it suddenly became less believable. The three main characters are well fleshed out but other characters, although important to the story, seem a bit 2D. There is a bit of romance which mainly remains unfulfilled and it will be interesting to see where the author takes this in any future novels.
This was a fast paced novel with lots of action and possibly my main issue is that for me, it was almost too pacy and some of the action needed a bit more build up.
This was a good debut and I would certainly be prepared to read any future novels in this series. Thank you to Net Galley and the publishers, Angry Robot, for providing me with this advance copy in exchange for this honest review.
Thank you to Angry Robot and NetGalley for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.
I started out quite enjoying this book. I liked the Italian mafia/gang-inspired setting with historical aspects, plus the dustpunk element was pretty cool. I was interested to see how this portrayal of colonisation would play out, and I thought the different levels of stakes the characters had in the plot were established. That's unfortunately where my enjoyment of this book ended.
These are some of the more minor things that I didn't like:
- There wasn't an adequate explanation for why Shade was so angry about her father's death when by all accounts--including her own!--he was pretty horrible to her. It gave the impression that they were very close when they clearly weren't.
- This one might be a little nitpicky but it took me out of the story a bit: why is Shade even called Shade? Her last name being Nox is fine because it's Latin, but I don't think wanting to give a character a "cool" name justifies breaking the language conventions of your world.
- The climax of the plot hinges on the Wild Power, but we never get a good explanation for what that actually is, so it fell a bit flat.
If the only issues with this book were the minor ones listed above, it would have been a much more enjoyable read. Unfortunately there were some major issues that need addressing:
- I could tell that the author was attempting to avoid it, but this still ended up essentially being a white saviour narrative. This could have been partially avoided if Shade hadn't spent the whole book talking about how she was going to be the one to save everyone etc etc., but I think there still would have been elements of it.
- There was never an explanation for why Raiden isn't affected by the magic in the same way as the other characters (who are all native to the nation the story takes place in), and also for why he's a preternaturally good swordsman. The Bhaskar Empire already felt "Asian"-coded and Raiden is very much coded as East Asian ("fine black hair", "delicate features", etc.), so this felt very uncomfortably close to "ninja" stereotypes.
- Speaking of the Bhaskar Empire, we did not get enough information on it for it to feel fleshed out at all. And the way it was coded was pretty bad too. Bhaskar is a Hindi word and yet Raiden (who is from the Empire) is very East-Asian coded, so this ended up coming across as yet another story by a white author who ignores the incredible diversity within Asia and so lumps all Asian identities together indiscriminately.
- And finally, the friendship and romance coding between Shade and Matteo was all over the place. Matteo confesses his feelings for her and they begin a physical relationship, which is fine and I did appreciate that a female lead character got to explore more than one relationship, but the level of feeling Shade had for Matteo after that was frankly pretty unrealistic. At most she's attracted to him and she's maybe starting to develop a bit of romantic interest in him, but there's absolutely no way her feelings for him were strong enough by that point to literally bend time and change events for him when he dies, so it all felt very "insta-love" to me which I hated. And then after all that they claimed to be "just friends" but also "beyond lovers". I understand that they bonded through shared trauma/experiences, but if there wasn't intended to be a romantic element to their relationship, it shouldn't have been so strongly coded as such. It's possible to write female/male friendships that even become friends-with-benefits relationships without romantic coding.
The fact that the pivotal events of the book were dependent on the strength of a relationship that was established far too late in the story to be deep enough and for us to care enough about it for that to work was a bad ending to a book that already had many issues.
I started out quite enjoying this book. I liked the Italian mafia/gang-inspired setting with historical aspects, plus the dustpunk element was pretty cool. I was interested to see how this portrayal of colonisation would play out, and I thought the different levels of stakes the characters had in the plot were established. That's unfortunately where my enjoyment of this book ended.
These are some of the more minor things that I didn't like:
- There wasn't an adequate explanation for why Shade was so angry about her father's death when by all accounts--including her own!--he was pretty horrible to her. It gave the impression that they were very close when they clearly weren't.
- This one might be a little nitpicky but it took me out of the story a bit: why is Shade even called Shade? Her last name being Nox is fine because it's Latin, but I don't think wanting to give a character a "cool" name justifies breaking the language conventions of your world.
- The climax of the plot hinges on the Wild Power, but we never get a good explanation for what that actually is, so it fell a bit flat.
If the only issues with this book were the minor ones listed above, it would have been a much more enjoyable read. Unfortunately there were some major issues that need addressing:
- I could tell that the author was attempting to avoid it, but this still ended up essentially being a white saviour narrative. This could have been partially avoided if Shade hadn't spent the whole book talking about how she was going to be the one to save everyone etc etc., but I think there still would have been elements of it.
- There was never an explanation for why Raiden isn't affected by the magic in the same way as the other characters (who are all native to the nation the story takes place in), and also for why he's a preternaturally good swordsman. The Bhaskar Empire already felt "Asian"-coded and Raiden is very much coded as East Asian ("fine black hair", "delicate features", etc.), so this felt very uncomfortably close to "ninja" stereotypes.
- Speaking of the Bhaskar Empire, we did not get enough information on it for it to feel fleshed out at all. And the way it was coded was pretty bad too. Bhaskar is a Hindi word and yet Raiden (who is from the Empire) is very East-Asian coded, so this ended up coming across as yet another story by a white author who ignores the incredible diversity within Asia and so lumps all Asian identities together indiscriminately.
- And finally, the friendship and romance coding between Shade and Matteo was all over the place. Matteo confesses his feelings for her and they begin a physical relationship, which is fine and I did appreciate that a female lead character got to explore more than one relationship, but the level of feeling Shade had for Matteo after that was frankly pretty unrealistic. At most she's attracted to him and she's maybe starting to develop a bit of romantic interest in him, but there's absolutely no way her feelings for him were strong enough by that point to literally bend time and change events for him when he dies, so it all felt very "insta-love" to me which I hated. And then after all that they claimed to be "just friends" but also "beyond lovers". I understand that they bonded through shared trauma/experiences, but if there wasn't intended to be a romantic element to their relationship, it shouldn't have been so strongly coded as such. It's possible to write female/male friendships that even become friends-with-benefits relationships without romantic coding.
The fact that the pivotal events of the book were dependent on the strength of a relationship that was established far too late in the story to be deep enough and for us to care enough about it for that to work was a bad ending to a book that already had many issues.
An interesting, but sometimes confusing story
-Big thanks to Netgalley for the eARC-
Shade Nox is a witch...in a land of wizards. And she's a wanted criminal. Despite that, she wears her magical tatoos and obisdian blade with pride. Veils of protection haven't ben raised in centuries, but she vows to raise one of her own to protect her people nonetheless, even if it will expose her every secrets. The Brotherhood swears to destroy her before she can, endangering her life. But Shade is determined to see her quest through, no matter the cost.
I enjoyed this book, but I was confused at times. I don't know if it's because of me or the story, but I sometimes had trouble understanding exactly what was going on. However, it didn't prevent me from really liking the main character, Shade. She is a very strong and determined woman, with a somewhat troublesome past. She is quite fascinating and following her on this journey was really fun. There were a lot of twists and turns, several points of views and many plot twists that surprised and confused me both sometimes. I really enjoyed the story as a whole, a good fantasy story with magic, friendship, love and betrayals. The world was interesting as well, but maybe a bit too complex and big to easily understand everything. The side characters were fun though, I liked how they stood by Shade's side no matter what, how they trusted and respected her. There are some strong female characters in this book, which is probably what I enjoyed the most. I didn't expect the story to take the turn it did and it was a very pleasant surprise. The ending was really intense and I was rushing to read what would happen.
I'd say I recommend to fantasy fans who aren't afraid of a somewhat complex story.
"I said the price was too high. I never said I wouldn't pay it."
-Big thanks to Netgalley for the eARC-
Shade Nox is a witch...in a land of wizards. And she's a wanted criminal. Despite that, she wears her magical tatoos and obisdian blade with pride. Veils of protection haven't ben raised in centuries, but she vows to raise one of her own to protect her people nonetheless, even if it will expose her every secrets. The Brotherhood swears to destroy her before she can, endangering her life. But Shade is determined to see her quest through, no matter the cost.
I enjoyed this book, but I was confused at times. I don't know if it's because of me or the story, but I sometimes had trouble understanding exactly what was going on. However, it didn't prevent me from really liking the main character, Shade. She is a very strong and determined woman, with a somewhat troublesome past. She is quite fascinating and following her on this journey was really fun. There were a lot of twists and turns, several points of views and many plot twists that surprised and confused me both sometimes. I really enjoyed the story as a whole, a good fantasy story with magic, friendship, love and betrayals. The world was interesting as well, but maybe a bit too complex and big to easily understand everything. The side characters were fun though, I liked how they stood by Shade's side no matter what, how they trusted and respected her. There are some strong female characters in this book, which is probably what I enjoyed the most. I didn't expect the story to take the turn it did and it was a very pleasant surprise. The ending was really intense and I was rushing to read what would happen.
I'd say I recommend to fantasy fans who aren't afraid of a somewhat complex story.
"I said the price was too high. I never said I wouldn't pay it."
This book was given to me in exchange for an honest review
There are a lot of things I didn't like about this book and there are some things I think were interesting.
Obsidian is set in a fantastical world with the main character, Shade Nox, a bloodwitch, who has a goal of creating a veil for her people. The chapters explore her relationships with other characters.
Firstly, the world building didn't come in strong. While reading fantasy, there's always a need for context but Obsidian doesn't provide that. There are a few words and events that happened that readers can imagine or experience because there's no showing.
This book has more telling than showing. The Characters are another reason I struggled to finish. The main character, Shade Nox, honestly there's no reason why you should like her.
She's obnoxious and arrogant. I honestly wanted to like her as a string female protagonist but She comes off as the "I can do everything and anything I want" kind.
In my opinion there was no emotional growth and Character development for Shade Nox.
Every Character has a "Why" their desire to keep the plot moving that often changes when they realise their goals are unachievable. There was none for Shade Nox. There's also no backstory for her, just a few mentions of her father.
We never got to see how she became a part of the Golondria clan or end up working for Dante Safire another Character.
Another thing that I didn't enjoy was the poor religious and political systems in the book. Who is this emperor with great power? Why were the church based on this rules. The world building like I said was too shallow. Not enough details.
The most annoying part was the relationships Shade Nox had. The sudden interest in Matteo felt like the author just wiped it out at the end. It had no business being in the plot.
The Characters are unlikable Because we can't see their desires, motivation to overcome a certain destiny. Not much conflict arises that brings emotional growth for the Characters.
The ending was what I thought would at least make everything right but it was the same as the whole story. I actually struggled to finish Obsidian Because I didn't see a reason to keep believing in this fantastical world.
And the blades, how were they made? What powers did each have? What's the purpose of the veil? What is even a veil? Questions that's what a lot of people will have while reading and nobody is going to answer these questions.
#Obsidian #Netgalley
There are a lot of things I didn't like about this book and there are some things I think were interesting.
Obsidian is set in a fantastical world with the main character, Shade Nox, a bloodwitch, who has a goal of creating a veil for her people. The chapters explore her relationships with other characters.
Firstly, the world building didn't come in strong. While reading fantasy, there's always a need for context but Obsidian doesn't provide that. There are a few words and events that happened that readers can imagine or experience because there's no showing.
This book has more telling than showing. The Characters are another reason I struggled to finish. The main character, Shade Nox, honestly there's no reason why you should like her.
She's obnoxious and arrogant. I honestly wanted to like her as a string female protagonist but She comes off as the "I can do everything and anything I want" kind.
In my opinion there was no emotional growth and Character development for Shade Nox.
Every Character has a "Why" their desire to keep the plot moving that often changes when they realise their goals are unachievable. There was none for Shade Nox. There's also no backstory for her, just a few mentions of her father.
We never got to see how she became a part of the Golondria clan or end up working for Dante Safire another Character.
Another thing that I didn't enjoy was the poor religious and political systems in the book. Who is this emperor with great power? Why were the church based on this rules. The world building like I said was too shallow. Not enough details.
The most annoying part was the relationships Shade Nox had. The sudden interest in Matteo felt like the author just wiped it out at the end. It had no business being in the plot.
The Characters are unlikable Because we can't see their desires, motivation to overcome a certain destiny. Not much conflict arises that brings emotional growth for the Characters.
The ending was what I thought would at least make everything right but it was the same as the whole story. I actually struggled to finish Obsidian Because I didn't see a reason to keep believing in this fantastical world.
And the blades, how were they made? What powers did each have? What's the purpose of the veil? What is even a veil? Questions that's what a lot of people will have while reading and nobody is going to answer these questions.
#Obsidian #Netgalley
adventurous
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
adventurous
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Misogyny, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Child death, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Alcohol
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Just look at this cover. So intense. I love it! The story is intense, too. Shade Nox likes to dress like a man and she won’t allow anyone to mess with her. With her obsidian blades at her hips and the immense power coiled inside, she is even more special than one might suspect. Unlike most bloodwizards she can access The Wild Power. The one that makes the earth tremble and skies crackle with thunders.
Whew.
Daley has a knack for world-building and creating characters filled with inner angst. And longings they can not fulfill. The magic system is dope. Bloodwizards gain access to elemental powers by cutting themselves with blades made of various minerals (obsidian, quartz, tanzanite, garnet, etc.). They all wear magic tattoos that heal self-inflicted wounds. I like the idea, but the image I have of these guys feverishly cutting themselves to go berserk before entering the fight walks the line between serious and ridiculous.
I liked the world: Shade lives in the Wastes protected by Veil from the abominations hiding “outside”. Shade believes she can raise a powerful Veil, but the Brotherhood (folks convinced only wizards should do magic and that blood witches are an abomination) won’t have any of it. I liked the dangerous and cinematic magic and the imagery of the Wastes.
Shade’s motives and determination are clear and understandable. I admired her determination and willingness to delve into dangerous magic. Unfortunately, she comes across as arrogant rather than complex. It seems that the men in her world can not resist her. I did not enjoy the romance part of the story; I just could not understand why the characters were into each other. Passion is all well and good, but I can’t say I bought it all.
Obsidian is a solid book with lots of action and mayhem. It may take itself too seriously (and feel goofy to some readers), but if you’ve been missing spectacular displays of magic, this is it.
ARC through NetGalley
Whew.
Daley has a knack for world-building and creating characters filled with inner angst. And longings they can not fulfill. The magic system is dope. Bloodwizards gain access to elemental powers by cutting themselves with blades made of various minerals (obsidian, quartz, tanzanite, garnet, etc.). They all wear magic tattoos that heal self-inflicted wounds. I like the idea, but the image I have of these guys feverishly cutting themselves to go berserk before entering the fight walks the line between serious and ridiculous.
I liked the world: Shade lives in the Wastes protected by Veil from the abominations hiding “outside”. Shade believes she can raise a powerful Veil, but the Brotherhood (folks convinced only wizards should do magic and that blood witches are an abomination) won’t have any of it. I liked the dangerous and cinematic magic and the imagery of the Wastes.
Shade’s motives and determination are clear and understandable. I admired her determination and willingness to delve into dangerous magic. Unfortunately, she comes across as arrogant rather than complex. It seems that the men in her world can not resist her. I did not enjoy the romance part of the story; I just could not understand why the characters were into each other. Passion is all well and good, but I can’t say I bought it all.
Obsidian is a solid book with lots of action and mayhem. It may take itself too seriously (and feel goofy to some readers), but if you’ve been missing spectacular displays of magic, this is it.
ARC through NetGalley