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wickedwitchofthewords's review
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
3.0
I’ve got to be honest, the idea of the story and the plot were very interesting to me, even though the characters didn’t work.
serru's review
3.0
2013, 2nd read, 3 stars:
A steampunk adventure with some intriguing mythology. The romance was a little too sweet for my taste, and I wasn't particularly attached to either character but this story was a decent way to pass time with.
A steampunk adventure with some intriguing mythology. The romance was a little too sweet for my taste, and I wasn't particularly attached to either character but this story was a decent way to pass time with.
lezreadalot's review
3.0
A good book! It revolved mostly around the two main characters' relationship, and the plot/world-building suffered because of it, but since character interaction remains my faaaaaavourite thing, I can't really count that as a flaw? But it must be mentioned that the general writing wasn't the best.
That wasn't my only nitpick. Though it did an okay job of handling race in this imagined world, the story leaned extremely heavily on racist tropes during the first half: big strong native savage takes care of the sweet weak frail white boy. Leaned REAL heavily; it got obnoxious. So, it was honestly kind of a relief when Kieran was allowed to be vulnerable, and had to be taken care of, and Ash had to come into his own and protect them both. It brought some much needed equilibrium to the table.
Another thing: they were both so young, SO YOUNG, for the people they were supposed to be and the lives they were supposed to have led. Arrested for propaganda against the state at 18? A famous wanted assassin at 19? Seems... unrealistic. And the whole idea about Talents and eating gods was really neat, just not very well written. I lost so many threads during this story, holy shit.
Anyway, I still liked it overall. They fell in love! While on the run from an evil theocratic regime! And discovering who they truly were! It was really cute.
That wasn't my only nitpick. Though it did an okay job of handling race in this imagined world, the story leaned extremely heavily on racist tropes during the first half: big strong native savage takes care of the sweet weak frail white boy. Leaned REAL heavily; it got obnoxious. So, it was honestly kind of a relief when Kieran was allowed to be vulnerable, and had to be taken care of, and Ash had to come into his own and protect them both. It brought some much needed equilibrium to the table.
Another thing: they were both so young, SO YOUNG, for the people they were supposed to be and the lives they were supposed to have led. Arrested for propaganda against the state at 18? A famous wanted assassin at 19? Seems... unrealistic. And the whole idea about Talents and eating gods was really neat, just not very well written. I lost so many threads during this story, holy shit.
Anyway, I still liked it overall. They fell in love! While on the run from an evil theocratic regime! And discovering who they truly were! It was really cute.
yvkhan's review
5.0
Edit: wait holy fuck is this by @jumpingjacktrash on tumblr I have legitimately followed him for quite some time not really religiously but damn he’s basically part of my childhood man and now he’s on ao3 writing naruto fic?? What a legend, icon, amazing.
In actual quality it’s probably about four stars but I just feel that it had a lot of heart and everything was well done as a whole.
The first third isn’t as good, I’d argue, because the ideas about race were sort of inserted in clumsily and the prologue was quite clumsy as well, though in a sense I got why it had to be there (the whole is greater than the sum of its parts). It did feel semi-fanfic-y at some parts, potentially because the first part seemed to be fixating very much on the budding relationship above all else (to be fair there’s very little you can do in a prison; sometimes to stick with the overall thread of the story your subplot may be kinda weak and you can’t really help it too much… writing sucks man). Some of the homophobia is also kinda… eh like whoa why is fantasy man using the f slur literally unprovoked.
There’s a certain style here where typically we are attached to audience surrogates (in this case probably Ash), but it occasionally jumps to Kai’s POV and as a result some plot threads seem to open up in medias res which can be somewhat abrupt in this case. I’m not sure if all strands were tied up per se. The villain isn’t particularly well-developed. But I did feel that to focus on any of these details would be a mistake since it would basically be missing the forest for the trees? It’s incredibly obvious now that I’m really examining the plot that this entire novel is mostly about the relationship between Ash and Kieran.
Kieran learns to believe in things and people (especially people) again and Ash matures, growing more competent and perhaps more unfeeling in his actions while retaining a sense of kindness and romanticism. Overall the novel seems to be about how uwu love and idealism can triumph in spite of horrific circumstances, which, well, is incredibly gay honestly. I would like to suggest that the sort of shoehorned in girl with wings at the end could be a symbol of this. Born of cruelty and monstrosity, emerging as a wondrous thing. Let’s pretend that she wasn’t just there for a future sequel that never materialised, shall we.
I do think that the characters were very well developed and I found their romance (yes, including the sex) very sweet and moving. The references to arousal were not off-putting and to some extent were comedic and sweet depending on the occasion. There’s a particular chapter (I believe the first one after
In actual quality it’s probably about four stars but I just feel that it had a lot of heart and everything was well done as a whole.
The first third isn’t as good, I’d argue, because the ideas about race were sort of inserted in clumsily and the prologue was quite clumsy as well, though in a sense I got why it had to be there (the whole is greater than the sum of its parts). It did feel semi-fanfic-y at some parts, potentially because the first part seemed to be fixating very much on the budding relationship above all else (to be fair there’s very little you can do in a prison; sometimes to stick with the overall thread of the story your subplot may be kinda weak and you can’t really help it too much… writing sucks man). Some of the homophobia is also kinda… eh like whoa why is fantasy man using the f slur literally unprovoked.
There’s a certain style here where typically we are attached to audience surrogates (in this case probably Ash), but it occasionally jumps to Kai’s POV and as a result some plot threads seem to open up in medias res which can be somewhat abrupt in this case. I’m not sure if all strands were tied up per se. The villain isn’t particularly well-developed. But I did feel that to focus on any of these details would be a mistake since it would basically be missing the forest for the trees? It’s incredibly obvious now that I’m really examining the plot that this entire novel is mostly about the relationship between Ash and Kieran.
Kieran learns to believe in things and people (especially people) again and Ash matures, growing more competent and perhaps more unfeeling in his actions while retaining a sense of kindness and romanticism. Overall the novel seems to be about how uwu love and idealism can triumph in spite of horrific circumstances, which, well, is incredibly gay honestly. I would like to suggest that the sort of shoehorned in girl with wings at the end could be a symbol of this. Born of cruelty and monstrosity, emerging as a wondrous thing. Let’s pretend that she wasn’t just there for a future sequel that never materialised, shall we.
I do think that the characters were very well developed and I found their romance (yes, including the sex) very sweet and moving. The references to arousal were not off-putting and to some extent were comedic and sweet depending on the occasion. There’s a particular chapter (I believe the first one after
tashas_books's review
5.0
Wow. Way different and much better than I thought it would be. I added it to my Amazon wishlist a few years ago because I'd heard it was really good but never got around to reading it. One of the categories in the 2011 January Category Challenge (from the M/M Romance group) was Fantasy Book with Gay Main Character. I decided to finally read this for the challenge, and I'm so glad I did. I'm just disappointed that this author hasn't written anything else.
blherrou's review
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
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? It's complicated
4.5
This book is pretty far outside my wheelhouse (gay fantasy romance), but I really enjoyed it nevertheless. The protagonists are a joy to be with as they struggle through a variety of difficult circumstances. The fantasy elements are light to start with, but become a much bigger part of the plot as the book progresses. There are some interesting thematic similarities between the setting of The God Eaters and The Traitor Baru Cormorant, but this is a feel-good book through and through, which may appeal to some readers more.
diamondrust's review
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
minegyu's review
4.0
Al fin terminé este libro! Me gustó mucho, de verdad, aunque realmente el plot no me atrajo mucho y fue demasiado. Aún así, la relación de Kieran y Ash ughhh que hermosa, me encantó. Sobretodo me gustó muchísimo ver cómo crecieron ambos, individualmente, y como eso fortaleció demasiado su relación. Amé mucho.