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3.87 AVERAGE
3.87 AVERAGE
adventurous
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
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I found it refreshing to have societal roles and genders flipped upside down, and I enjoyed the plot. The character’s aren’t particularly deep, but that doesn’t actually bother me, because to me, it’s not about them as much as the investigation.
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
emotional
reflective
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:
No
Brilliant. Thoroughly original world within the gas lamp/faux-tourism parameters I like — along the lines while being nothing like the Brennan dragon books. Wonderfully diverse both from a real world perspective and within the world created, and I love that it’s a world with real issues related to race and class but it’s also a world in which almost everyone seems to be bisexual EVEN IN UPTIGHT DAESLUND. The various countries and their interactions are background but thoroughly real, so that the world feels radical but also thoroughly lived in. I loved all three perspective characters (maybe Jeckram most, he’s so dry and cynical, and Tsira’s voice least, but she is fantastic), and am willing to forgive that I 100% knew who the murderer was from the first moment we got to know the character. I foresee many mystery-fantasy mashups in the future, based on some foreshadowing at the end, and while the mystery plotting is weaker than the character or world development, it provides a solid propulsive plot to keep the pages turning (although also I could just read the adventures of Loga and Onna in wizard society and be fine with that, darling). Splendid.
Oh! Also some real gems of descriptive writing; I highlighted a few that I especially delighted in:
The stories nestled themselves into her head and created a sort of horrid wax mold into which her brain poured her own petty anxieties.
A dark-haired young person with a face that suggested he had spent his entire childhood watching his bread and butter fall to the floor butter-side down.
He was used to wirelessly crashing about in other people’s sensibilities like a wild boar in a laboratory.
She was in the habit of apologizing for making faces that men thought weren’t very pretty. It occurred to her, very briefly, that she resented being made to think about her face when she was trying to focus on the contents of her _mind_.
...if using the phrase _delicious magenta taffeta_ doesn’t make you some sort of radical, then there’s no reason for the word!
Oh! Also some real gems of descriptive writing; I highlighted a few that I especially delighted in:
The stories nestled themselves into her head and created a sort of horrid wax mold into which her brain poured her own petty anxieties.
A dark-haired young person with a face that suggested he had spent his entire childhood watching his bread and butter fall to the floor butter-side down.
He was used to wirelessly crashing about in other people’s sensibilities like a wild boar in a laboratory.
She was in the habit of apologizing for making faces that men thought weren’t very pretty. It occurred to her, very briefly, that she resented being made to think about her face when she was trying to focus on the contents of her _mind_.
...if using the phrase _delicious magenta taffeta_ doesn’t make you some sort of radical, then there’s no reason for the word!
adventurous
hopeful
mysterious
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:
Complicated
I don’t think I would’ve gone into this if I knew quite how much troll porn was in it. But it was fine?
adventurous
mysterious
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:
No