Reviews - Le pays sans lune

5.87k reviews for:

Le pays sans lune

Simon Jimenez

4.34 AVERAGE

justahorse's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous challenging dark hopeful tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

museings's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous 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

sterling8's review against another edition

5.0

Around the Year in 52 Books 2024: 15. A book whose author’s name includes one of the 4 least used letters in the alphabet (JQZX)

I was leery of this book for a while. When I read reviews, it seemed complicated and intimidating. And it did take a while to get into. The author uses second person POV and also has the reader descend into the story by way of an dream Inverted Theater: you go to this theater in a dream and then see the true story play out. There are also italicized interjections throughout the book that function as a way to remember that there are many people in the book that aren't focused on that nevertheless have their own lives, problems and fears.

All that said, the story at the heart of the book is a love story to its blade-dented bone. Two young warriors end up on the same road and learn to rely on each other. It's also an adventure story through a fabulous land with magical, terrifying princes, tortoises that can speak and function as a long-distance communication network, and a mythology that is very much still being created.

The story takes some time to get going. The pace slowly picks up as days go by in the book until the end becomes an explosion of action and peril. The book can be gruesome and horrifying in places too.

The wonder of the book for me is that despite the carnage, the author never loses sight of or compassion for all the inhabitants of the book. Nothing is really simple or black and white. It's about point of view and understanding that your point of view isn't the only one. It's about heritage. And it's about how we choose to see stories. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and plan to read more by this author.

vamarama's review against another edition

2.0

I wanted to love this book but I was unfortunately so bored throughout the whole thing. The writing style was fascinating and expiramental and very well done, but maybe that also contributed to my lack of immersion in the story. On paper this feels like something that would be right up my alley, but I didn't really care about anything that happened.