Reviews tagging 'Terminal illness'

A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske

5 reviews

arialien's review

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dark informative medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

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discarded_dust_jacket's review against another edition

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

5.0

I don’t know why I allowed this to sit on my TBR untouched for so long. It was an utter delight—a pleasure to read.

There’s some authors whose writing style make reading their books like swimming upstream. Not that it’s bad, but it just feels incongruent with the way your mind works, and so digesting the words takes effort and concentration. Then there’s some who just have a way of crafting sentences that feels so satisfying. Like a scalp massage. That was the way it felt to read this book, for me. 

The prose was so elegant and yet accessible. And the characters! So achingly endearing, it almost hurt. I loved this book. A lot.
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miraileah's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I loved the pacing of this book. When
Robin’s curse was lifted
I was confused how the book would have ~30% more to go, but then at the ~90% mark, I didn’t know how everything would resolve in time! Of course, I loved the ending, and Marske sets up the end of the novel perfectly, not only for the sequel, but also to end the narrative journey that our characters had taken in an interesting and satisfying way. I very much enjoyed reading about Robin and Edwin, and though I am a little bummed that the next book in this trilogy won’t be about them, I still can’t wait to devour it and all that follow. 
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clairew97's review

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense 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? N/A

3.5

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nutm3g's review

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adventurous challenging mysterious slow-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

5.0

The care and thought Freya put into writing this novel was apparent from the first chapter. After reading the acknowledgments it is easy to tell that she must have a few well loved and finely written pieces of fics somewhere out on the web. The practicalness and preciseness required when using magic (as well as the configurations of the hands to wield magic) reminded me of The Magicians, which feels fairly rare to find in magical related literature. It is a style of magical fiction that I find refreshing and almost realistic in its nature. The romance that arises between the two protagonists is nicely hashed out, and the progression of their relationship felt well paced and realistic (i.e. not rushed). I am excited to see how their story progresses, as well as that of the wonderfully badass women in their lives. 
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