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4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
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:
No
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I enjoyed it but I really struggled with the multiple POV’s. Due to how many there were it felt like everything took a long time to go anywhere.
I loved Jovis and Lin and kinda wish it stayed with just those two although I understand why there were others.
I’m looking forward to reading the next one and finding out more.
I loved Jovis and Lin and kinda wish it stayed with just those two although I understand why there were others.
I’m looking forward to reading the next one and finding out more.
adventurous
dark
emotional
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:
Yes
Right, well...
There were some really interesting ideas in there (I had a lot of fun with some of the ending bits), but their impact was diluted by the sheer amount of POVs that we had tosuffer through experience (five!!!), which prevented things from getting adequately explored/developed. The cycle was: Character 1 talks about needing or wanting to do X -> cut away to different POV -> Character 2 also talks about needing or wanting to do X -> come back to the other POV -> X happened without you so here's a brief summary of how it went down -> rinse and repeat. It was kinda ass.
Also, I thought bone shard magic sounded super cool, it was one of the main reasons I picked this book up in the first place, and so like the absolute fool I was I believed that we would see Lin "master the forbidden art of bone shard magic", cuz like, it's in the book description...but she basically just learned it all off-screen???
Also also, Ranami was annoyingly selfish and it was always unfortunate to have to read her POV chapters, or any moment with her really. Though maybe not as unfortunate as her romance with Phalue, since those two are literally incompatible and I have no idea how they made it to three years together. Both of these people have the receptiveness of a stone wall and act like they've never heard of the word "communication" before. I'm exhausted just thinking about being in a relationship like theirs. I'd need all ten fingers and toes to count the number of times I was like "why the fuck are you guys even still dating?" Oh but we're supposed to root for them btw (I was rooting for them to break up)
Methinks there were also some basic issues with the writing, like every POV had the same tone and personality(?), so the characters didn't really have nuance to their perspectives and were mostly just distinguishable by who currently held the plot baton. The biggest difference between character POVs was that some were written in first person, others in third, but they all still felt so similar to one another that I didn't even realize this until literally the last 15% of the book.
We got the first physical description of one of the main leads in like the final 3 chapters lol (they also suffered from a great pet peeve of mine where the author cops out of emotional beats and established character traits because, hey, plot convenience)
The rhythm also would often fall back into really internally fragmented paragraphs, without much flow between its sentences;
"The walls were clean but in disrepair. The plaster had broken away in places, leaving the stone beneath exposed. It was easy enough to climb. The monkey-shaped construct atop the wall just glanced at me before turning its limpid gaze back to the city. A thrill rushed through me when I touched down on the other side."
I'm not saying everything always has to be like the most fluid flowery sentence structure ever, but this cadence of writing cropped up rather frequently and was always pretty distracting when I noticed it, especially in moments where something smoother would have benefited the tone and situation more (like we're having an emotional scene but the emotion. Just keep stopping. Because we have to describe things. Ahhhh I'm feelingfantastic so tragic. It's sad and horrible and it's also raining.)
A sturdy 3 fish.
There were some really interesting ideas in there (I had a lot of fun with some of the ending bits), but their impact was diluted by the sheer amount of POVs that we had to
Also, I thought bone shard magic sounded super cool, it was one of the main reasons I picked this book up in the first place, and so like the absolute fool I was I believed that we would see Lin "master the forbidden art of bone shard magic", cuz like, it's in the book description...but she basically just learned it all off-screen???
Also also, Ranami was annoyingly selfish and it was always unfortunate to have to read her POV chapters, or any moment with her really. Though maybe not as unfortunate as her romance with Phalue, since those two are literally incompatible and I have no idea how they made it to three years together. Both of these people have the receptiveness of a stone wall and act like they've never heard of the word "communication" before. I'm exhausted just thinking about being in a relationship like theirs. I'd need all ten fingers and toes to count the number of times I was like "why the fuck are you guys even still dating?" Oh but we're supposed to root for them btw (I was rooting for them to break up)
Methinks there were also some basic issues with the writing, like every POV had the same tone and personality(?), so the characters didn't really have nuance to their perspectives and were mostly just distinguishable by who currently held the plot baton. The biggest difference between character POVs was that some were written in first person, others in third, but they all still felt so similar to one another that I didn't even realize this until literally the last 15% of the book.
We got the first physical description of one of the main leads in like the final 3 chapters lol (they also suffered from a great pet peeve of mine where the author cops out of emotional beats and established character traits because, hey, plot convenience)
The rhythm also would often fall back into really internally fragmented paragraphs, without much flow between its sentences;
"The walls were clean but in disrepair. The plaster had broken away in places, leaving the stone beneath exposed. It was easy enough to climb. The monkey-shaped construct atop the wall just glanced at me before turning its limpid gaze back to the city. A thrill rushed through me when I touched down on the other side."
I'm not saying everything always has to be like the most fluid flowery sentence structure ever, but this cadence of writing cropped up rather frequently and was always pretty distracting when I noticed it, especially in moments where something smoother would have benefited the tone and situation more (like we're having an emotional scene but the emotion. Just keep stopping. Because we have to describe things. Ahhhh I'm feeling
A sturdy 3 fish.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
It was fine. Neither exceptional or terrible.
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
dark
mysterious
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