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4.01 AVERAGE
4.01 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
mysterious
slow-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:
Complicated
I first read this trilogy sometime way, way back in college; I remember staying up all night to finish the first book. I did that again this time. It's hard to put this book down. The characters are captivating, the culture of Terre D'Ange is beautifully portrayed (especially the Night Court), and the political intrigue and romance are just plain fun. It's not "a classic" -- it's a romance, and can be a bit cheesy at times -- but it's well-written and enjoyable, and will suck you in.
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
slow-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:
Complicated
Phedre is the ultimate heroine. These books have my heart. An all time great that I will read many times over.
I highly recommend the audiobook, it does justice to the archaic and poetic prose.
I highly recommend the audiobook, it does justice to the archaic and poetic prose.
dark
emotional
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Infidelity, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Alcohol
adventurous
dark
emotional
slow-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:
Complicated
adventurous
challenging
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:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual content, Slavery, Torture, Toxic relationship, Blood, Death of parent, War, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Death, Gore, Violence, Abandonment, Classism
Minor: Animal death, Pedophilia, Xenophobia, Vomit, Grief, Cultural appropriation
Delicate and dangerous, Phedre's grit, mind, and skills are insane. Highly entertaining! Had me screaming many times, I love it.
I'm not sure I have the words to do Kushiel's Dart justice. Richly developed, with a colourful cast of characters that you can't help but love, it is absolutely worth the read. It's perhaps not your typical epic fantasy fare - there's no dragons or elves to be found here - but there's political intrigue on a Game of Thrones-esque scale, and plenty of heart-wrenching moments to boot.
Go on and read it. I dare you not to fall in love with Phèdre and her companions.
Go on and read it. I dare you not to fall in love with Phèdre and her companions.
It is more of a 3.5 than a 3. I feel that Kushiel's Dart is a good book, riveting enough, and it gets better as it goes along. I don't really approve about how the main character, Phedre, sees her world, her gender, her sexuality or about how her culture goes about its business, but hey, it's an alien world with alien cultures and it is not really judged as particularly perfect either by her or by the author. In this variant Earth, God is a jerk, Mother Earth is as much a goddess as him and Jesus is a jew and so are his followers - weeeell wait a minute... that is not so strange. And then we get to know that the resident Fantasy French are descendants of the son of Jesus and his angelic allies.
Well, this novel is set in a sort of fantasy migration-age quasi-France where the culture looks more like early modern. Italians are "Caerdicci" Renaissance-age post-Roman people, northerners-scandinavians-germans are "Skaldi" Viking-analogs, people of England are "Albans" and so on and so forth. Everything has been streamlined, historically, and there is a distinct lack of complexity and no Slavic people around, don't ask me why.
The plot is strongly intrigue-oriented, with betrayals and a few action scenes that are suffused with a weird ninja-medieval Three Musqueteers vibe. There is a lot of sex, and it seems that it is all about the main character. The fact that she is a magical masochistic fetishist is the lynchpin of her character. She is a whipping post with a mild healing factor, and that is the extent of her personal powers, except for a bit of smarts and courage. She is well developed, even if at the heart of it she is a basic "plucky girl about the world". Phedre's sexual capers are no 50 Shades mild spankings rife with psychological abuse, this is willing torture with a safeword and all the necessary cotillons that can ramp up to a lot of cruelty. Sometimes the plot is fairly bent around a good fucking and whipping, so that our Phedre can get over the pesky political or military (I shit you not!) conflict by being a magical sex priestess. For being such an explicit book about the MC's main abilities, we must inform you that there is little enough real sex described, which is not so weird at all when you consider that lovemaking is mostly weird sucking sounds and testicles noisily flapping around like trapped carps. Jacquelin Carey is not a writer that wishes to get descriptive about lubrication and biological waste, she is the kind of woman that vastly prefers to wax surprisingly poetical about weird stuff like the simple pleasure of spreading butter over a fresh baguette. The MC abilites, though, are not really so wrong: sex, dialogue, intrigue, fencing, wrestling, magic can be used as conflict and resolution in mostly the same way. They do, here, and it is not too bad. I can't approve of the cavalier attitude about not-overtly ultra-violent rape. Phedre is coerced to sex unwillingly with a king, and this is simply galling and bothering to her. When she is threatened with rape by a violent soldier, THAT is traumatic and a tragedy, though. Why is this treated like so? I find it problematic. Still, this is in-character, in POV. I hope.
The prose is a bit above my purple-meter, but it's not really bad except when the author feels the need to grind it home some concept. She gets extra flowery when discussing Phedre's self-consciousness about her own nature or inner turmoil.
The beginning is a bit too slow, with a lot of character developement and build-up. Maybe being a little faster with it and getting in the main conflict sooner would have been a better setup overall, but there is a lot of prurient "getting a sexual education to be a magical sex priestess". At some point the setting changes dramatically! We are going a-viking within mere pages. It is since Sherwood Smith's Inda "we are going to sea!" that I didn't feel so bloody lost about a sudden alteration in a novel's tone. It's not bad, though, it shakes up the book, and it ends up fine and dramatic. The end is very Sandersonesque, and rather good, with a lot of climax, action and heroics.
All in all it is a good read, albeit REALLY long and not always perfect, and it somewhat troubles my sensibilities.
Well, this novel is set in a sort of fantasy migration-age quasi-France where the culture looks more like early modern. Italians are "Caerdicci" Renaissance-age post-Roman people, northerners-scandinavians-germans are "Skaldi" Viking-analogs, people of England are "Albans" and so on and so forth. Everything has been streamlined, historically, and there is a distinct lack of complexity and no Slavic people around, don't ask me why.
The plot is strongly intrigue-oriented, with betrayals and a few action scenes that are suffused with a weird ninja-medieval Three Musqueteers vibe. There is a lot of sex, and it seems that it is all about the main character. The fact that she is a magical masochistic fetishist is the lynchpin of her character. She is a whipping post with a mild healing factor, and that is the extent of her personal powers, except for a bit of smarts and courage. She is well developed, even if at the heart of it she is a basic "plucky girl about the world". Phedre's sexual capers are no 50 Shades mild spankings rife with psychological abuse, this is willing torture with a safeword and all the necessary cotillons that can ramp up to a lot of cruelty. Sometimes the plot is fairly bent around a good fucking and whipping, so that our Phedre can get over the pesky political or military (I shit you not!) conflict by being a magical sex priestess. For being such an explicit book about the MC's main abilities, we must inform you that there is little enough real sex described, which is not so weird at all when you consider that lovemaking is mostly weird sucking sounds and testicles noisily flapping around like trapped carps. Jacquelin Carey is not a writer that wishes to get descriptive about lubrication and biological waste, she is the kind of woman that vastly prefers to wax surprisingly poetical about weird stuff like the simple pleasure of spreading butter over a fresh baguette. The MC abilites, though, are not really so wrong: sex, dialogue, intrigue, fencing, wrestling, magic can be used as conflict and resolution in mostly the same way. They do, here, and it is not too bad. I can't approve of the cavalier attitude about not-overtly ultra-violent rape. Phedre is coerced to sex unwillingly with a king, and this is simply galling and bothering to her. When she is threatened with rape by a violent soldier, THAT is traumatic and a tragedy, though. Why is this treated like so? I find it problematic. Still, this is in-character, in POV. I hope.
The prose is a bit above my purple-meter, but it's not really bad except when the author feels the need to grind it home some concept. She gets extra flowery when discussing Phedre's self-consciousness about her own nature or inner turmoil.
The beginning is a bit too slow, with a lot of character developement and build-up. Maybe being a little faster with it and getting in the main conflict sooner would have been a better setup overall, but there is a lot of prurient "getting a sexual education to be a magical sex priestess". At some point the setting changes dramatically! We are going a-viking within mere pages. It is since Sherwood Smith's Inda "we are going to sea!" that I didn't feel so bloody lost about a sudden alteration in a novel's tone. It's not bad, though, it shakes up the book, and it ends up fine and dramatic. The end is very Sandersonesque, and rather good, with a lot of climax, action and heroics.
All in all it is a good read, albeit REALLY long and not always perfect, and it somewhat troubles my sensibilities.