Reviews - Faithbreaker | The StoryGraph

1.67k reviews for:

Faithbreaker

Hannah Kaner

4.19 AVERAGE

hannah_d_17's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous emotional 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

shadon's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous emotional tense 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

There’s no perfect evil or perfect good. There’s no easy answer to a question of right or wrong: they’re not two sides of a coin you toss. What’s important is the question.

Yeah, so I'd like to file an assault claim for that ending. Just a gut punch that snuck up on me out of nowhere, and now I'm expected to continue on normally like I didn't just experience that. I'm seriously still in denial; maybe I'll pretend it didn't happen. You know a book is impactful when you feel like jumping the author for ripping out your heart with no remorse. What to even say right now, seeing as I'm still in mourning? Even the cover is making me tear up.

In Faithbreaker, an eventful journey comes to an end, a family fights together to save the world, and a new path is laid for the future we don't quite get to see. We join our little family - Kissen, Inara, Elogast, and Skedi - for one last adventure, one final stand, and to save the world from its fiery end and to form a new faith, built on the inevitability of change and the unbroken bonds that connect us to those we love. For is it not true that there is no greater strength than the faith we have in ourselves? We sail across seas and march across a kingdom at war, fighting to push back the invaders who have come to claim our beloved Middren for their own.

Like the last book, this one takes a little while to get going. It was slow and tentative at first, moving all the pieces into the right place before the game could begin. The story itself is structured much differently from Books 1 and 2. It's a race against time, with a loudly ticking clock that continues to grow louder. Stakes are immediately higher from the outset, and a prickling sense of danger sits heavy with every page turn. Despite this, it remains slow-going for the first 100 pages, with fewer battles and sword clashes, and more council meetings and forming tentative alliances. Worst of all, our quartet is separated again for more than half of this, though it wasn't as bad as last time, and their well-earned reunion made it worth it.

The first half focuses mostly on character growth and relationship building, allowing the reader to feel the full brunt of their urgency. There are blood-soaked battles and careful diplomacy, new gods and old gods, a ship deck stained by death, betrayals, and new bonds, and so much burning that it nearly singes the nose.

It’s all pretend, power. It’s make-believe and storytelling. Some people just make better stories.

The world is expanded further, introducing new characters from new kingdoms and traveling to meet them in places we've never seen, that have only previously been mentioned in passing. While most of it was interesting, some of it was pretty forgettable, with vaguely interchangeable characters meant only to fill space, and confusing kingdom names that I could never really grab hold of. It's all thrown at you here, and it's a lot to take in with so little time to linger. The worldbuilding remains somewhat sparse, regardless, but it still works in every way. It suits the story being told, as this series has focused more on the characters' place within the world itself, their beliefs, and their understanding of how it has shaped their existence.

Where the story shines is in the little character moments, like bright sparks shooting upward. Every interaction deepened my connection to the cast and their cause for victory. Our quartet remains well defined and lovable, this time dealing with the challenges of the heart as they try to find themselves on the edge of a world-destroying war, going on a quest inside and outside of themselves, and undergoing struggles that challenge them as people. All of them have something to do, and each has their grand moment. None of them feels lacking, and never do you feel as though one is being neglected. Their bonds and connections colored them all in bright shapes, and my love for them never wavered. The found family quartet remained the best part of this entire trilogy, and it really stood out in such a character-driven story as this. Their evolution and steady progress pushed the story into greatness that rarely fell to a place I did not enjoy.

All of the relationships shone, and both of the romances worked. It was not perhaps the strongest aspect, but each was compelling and cute. I was rooting for both of them to have a happy ending, but well... typical author cruelty prevailed. I am sad to see them all go, and I am sad to leave this world of gods and godkillers, of kings and ruined cities and an adventure that sucked me in and dug in it's claws without me ever really noticing.

Then be careful of the lies you tell yourself. They’re not always kind.

It all builds towards the final battle, a riveting multi-chapter-long event that kept me well on my toes. I had no idea what was happening, and then everything was happening. It was concise and quick, pulse-pounding and brimming with tension. You never really knew how the curtain would fall, how they would save the day, and who would survive, if anyone. Trapped in the atmospheric intensity of the assault, it was like I was there, standing beside every character and holding tight before I was cut down too. It's the culmination of a trilogy, and it was executed brilliantly, a vivid fight against a god of flames and fury, with a hundred very scattered moving parts and players. Some of it goes wrong, of course, such is the way, and then it goes right, and wrong again, and then it kicks you in the face and leaves you weeping in the mud.

It does a good job of feeling like 'the end of everything.' The last time you would be in this world and with these characters, and maybe the collapse of Middren as a kingdom. The swift, smashing brutality of it was written in blood and flame, the vivid descriptions of battle that place you right in the heart of it. And then the twists and turns spin you all the way around; bearings are lost, and you are caught well off guard. and everything has changed. People die, love is lost, and lives are changed forever, and then at the end (I'm tearing up as I write this), it is capped off with a terrible blow unlike any other. A sacrifice to end the story, because in this world, gods love martyrs, and the author hates my heart.

A powerful final book with no remorse for its readers, a bittersweet but satisfying end to the world of gods and of a little family lost and then found. It explores what it means to be faithful, what it means to believe in something other than yourself, the nature of power, and the power of a good story. What is change? What is life? What does it mean to give too much of your being to someone else? It examines the kindness of a little white lie, the mercy of allowing yourself to believe in it.

Gods once walked this world and made it theirs until they were unmade, but even they must bow to the will of love, greater even than the pain so many of them crave. There is nothing greater, nothing more potent and destructive than the love all humans hold. A godkiller, a baker knight, a little girl more than she seems, and a god of white lies, an unlikely family who changed the world itself, while finding the power to embrace change and to grow past their limits. I loved them from the start, and I loved them until the end. The absorbing characters made this series what it was, and I was with them all the way through, rooting for each of them in all that they did. In the end, love saved the world of Middren, love for each other and love for the world, as it does all things.

I've made myself sad again, just thinking of the ending. Someone, please pick me up off the floor. I still can't quite believe that actually happened.

jazzyj92's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous dark emotional funny sad 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: Complicated

kjunkz's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring sad tense 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: Complicated

A cinematic ending to this series. I laughed, I cried, I wanted to punch people; all the hallmarks of a good book for me. I'm excited to see what Hannah Kaner has up her sleeve next.

Except I'm never going to forgive her for

offing Legs. Would it have killed her to have added a line with him inexplicably wandering up to Sakre at the end??

Hannah, please!

gabs2030's review against another edition

3.0

The ending tied things up well and was emotionally satisfying but, like book 2, the overall book was a drawn out, politically tedious slog.

It felt like such a waste of the emotionally rich character’s and their family dynamic Kaner had created in the first book. The series performed at its best when they were together but they spent the majority of the final 2 books apart.

I would’ve also liked to have seen more focus on the unique world of gods the story took place in, rather than long war strategising scenes in tents.