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redheadreading's review against another edition
4.0
Really enjoying the extended focus on the Maryn/Lilli/Nevyn etc timeline! I didn't enjoy the last set of four books as much as the first set, but I'm super intrigued about how this third arc will go.
ellieanor's review
3.0
This is quite old. And I can tell. I guess that isn't the best thing to say about a book - that it hasn't aged well, but I could just tell it wasn't from the modern realms of fantasy. Which is fine. I was interested to see how the genre had progress since the 1990s. It isn't that old, but there is a gap there, and a lot of development has taken place in that time. This book is the first in a series that is part of a huge saga, and guess what? I haven't read any of the others. I think maybe it might have been beneficial to me if I had read the other books first, as in some places they sort of alluded to events that had happened that I didn't know about, but I believe this is a new set of characters, and anyway it makes sense on its own. It was entertaining, and I will probably read the rest of this series at some point.
Okay, but something I find often in older big fantasy book series (not so much in newer ones) is that the characters tend to be kind of one dimensional - almost caricatures. They tend to be a little bit over dramatized and a little cringey. I never really connected to any of them. Lilli was just kind of weak and annoying, and the whole damsel in distress. And the villain, Merodda, just never convinced me, and not in a "redemption" way. We just saw too much from her point of view, and it didn't really help to develop her character. None of them were really deep. And because I couldn't really connect to the characters, I didn't really feel the action scenes in full emotion.
But it was pretty entertaining! I just kind of wanted a big fantasy series with high stakes, and it sort of delivered? I didn't fully understand the motives behind some things, but the plot was what I wanted, and I kind of breezed through it without getting too emotionally involved. I liked the structure of the plot - how it went back and forth in time - but it really annoyed me how there were no chapters! It made the whole thing seem kind of long and drawn out. Plus, in the first and last part, nothing really happened, because stuff was only happening when we went into the past. Which meant that in the last fifty pages I was a leeeetle bored? But I think that will be remedied in the later books.
I did enjoyed this, but I don't think it has aged as well as some other books. It was kind of what I wanted, and I will continue the rest of the series when I'm in the mood, but this isn't an emotional book or whatever. It's more just a book that you just kind of read, and if it isn't an interesting plot line for you, I wouldn't recommend it. The characters feel underdeveloped and over dramatized, there was some sexism that wasn't really addressed, and the writing style wasn't good enough to bring up my rating. But I did enjoy it in some ways, and it was what I was looking for, and seeing how fantasy has changed even in the last 20 years was interesting too.
Okay, but something I find often in older big fantasy book series (not so much in newer ones) is that the characters tend to be kind of one dimensional - almost caricatures. They tend to be a little bit over dramatized and a little cringey. I never really connected to any of them. Lilli was just kind of weak and annoying, and the whole damsel in distress. And the villain, Merodda, just never convinced me, and not in a "redemption" way. We just saw too much from her point of view, and it didn't really help to develop her character. None of them were really deep. And because I couldn't really connect to the characters, I didn't really feel the action scenes in full emotion.
But it was pretty entertaining! I just kind of wanted a big fantasy series with high stakes, and it sort of delivered? I didn't fully understand the motives behind some things, but the plot was what I wanted, and I kind of breezed through it without getting too emotionally involved. I liked the structure of the plot - how it went back and forth in time - but it really annoyed me how there were no chapters! It made the whole thing seem kind of long and drawn out. Plus, in the first and last part, nothing really happened, because stuff was only happening when we went into the past. Which meant that in the last fifty pages I was a leeeetle bored? But I think that will be remedied in the later books.
I did enjoyed this, but I don't think it has aged as well as some other books. It was kind of what I wanted, and I will continue the rest of the series when I'm in the mood, but this isn't an emotional book or whatever. It's more just a book that you just kind of read, and if it isn't an interesting plot line for you, I wouldn't recommend it. The characters feel underdeveloped and over dramatized, there was some sexism that wasn't really addressed, and the writing style wasn't good enough to bring up my rating. But I did enjoy it in some ways, and it was what I was looking for, and seeing how fantasy has changed even in the last 20 years was interesting too.
cheaptadpole's review
3.0
look man, it's not bad, like really it isn't. i just genuinely didn't care about anyone or anything in this story.
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