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3.53 AVERAGE
3.53 AVERAGE
Interesting metaphor for carbon emissions, I think. Everything is easier with magic even tho the magic is destroying the environment. Only the rich can afford to do magic, while the poor suffer the consequences.
This is four connected novella set in the same, very interesting, but very dark world.
Excellent world-building, but feels unfinished. Each of the four stories had half-endings. I expected the characters to pop up again, but they never did. I imagine that's intentional, but it's unsatisfying.
Oh, I have so mixed feelings about this book. Or maybe I don't :) Not sure :P Possibly 3,5 stars.
Well first of all. I really enjoyed the premise of the story. There is a world that has magic and spells, but each spell comes with a price, depending on the size of the change the price is bigger or smaller.
And the price is a toxic dangerous and almost undestroyable weed. As a person who works with alien species, this was really up my ally. The book contained 4 stories and I think I liked the first one the best. Can't remember the order now. Not so much into the story of a woman paining after her children, although I liked her development and decision to stick with it. Small boy looking for his sister (3rd story?) was also really lovely.
Now I come to the hate part and that is not relevant for everyone, just those who happened to read it in Estonian or understand that language. I don't read often in Estonian. Books in English are just so much cheaper to buy. But sometimes I still do, and regret it.
The translation was bad, it looked like someone did a machine translation and did not edit it. Some parts were quite good, but then there were so many parts when expressions in English were translated word for word. And languages do not work like that.
Yes, in English they talk of kiss on death, but you cant just use "suudlus" for that. During an active fight scene someone is fighting with an axe, and describes "tegin tema kõhtu augu" (very passive and strange description). Or I am quite sure the original was "I hit the floor hard" - you know, when you fall so hard you almost knock the air out of your lungs... And that is a logical sentence in English, but "... et maha kukkusin. Lõin ennast kõvasti vastu põrandat ära..." is not an Estonian sentence, yes it contains Estonian words but that does not make it into a sentence Estonian would use.
And this was throughout the whole book.
Either I did not notice it in the first story or there actually the translator had gone back and fixed all these style errors, but the rest of the 3 were full of these. Had it been my personal book I would have underlined it, so I would have had more examples here. But it was common and so bad that it took me out of the story every few pages. This kind of explains why it took me so long to read it. It was just so frustrating.
Well first of all. I really enjoyed the premise of the story. There is a world that has magic and spells, but each spell comes with a price, depending on the size of the change the price is bigger or smaller.
And the price is a toxic dangerous and almost undestroyable weed. As a person who works with alien species, this was really up my ally. The book contained 4 stories and I think I liked the first one the best. Can't remember the order now. Not so much into the story of a woman paining after her children, although I liked her development and decision to stick with it. Small boy looking for his sister (3rd story?) was also really lovely.
Now I come to the hate part and that is not relevant for everyone, just those who happened to read it in Estonian or understand that language. I don't read often in Estonian. Books in English are just so much cheaper to buy. But sometimes I still do, and regret it.
The translation was bad, it looked like someone did a machine translation and did not edit it. Some parts were quite good, but then there were so many parts when expressions in English were translated word for word. And languages do not work like that.
Yes, in English they talk of kiss on death, but you cant just use "suudlus" for that. During an active fight scene someone is fighting with an axe, and describes "tegin tema kõhtu augu" (very passive and strange description). Or I am quite sure the original was "I hit the floor hard" - you know, when you fall so hard you almost knock the air out of your lungs... And that is a logical sentence in English, but "... et maha kukkusin. Lõin ennast kõvasti vastu põrandat ära..." is not an Estonian sentence, yes it contains Estonian words but that does not make it into a sentence Estonian would use.
And this was throughout the whole book.
Either I did not notice it in the first story or there actually the translator had gone back and fixed all these style errors, but the rest of the 3 were full of these. Had it been my personal book I would have underlined it, so I would have had more examples here. But it was common and so bad that it took me out of the story every few pages. This kind of explains why it took me so long to read it. It was just so frustrating.
Loved these novellas, but I kept thinking/ hoping they were heading toward portraying some type of collective action and in the end they all returned to the story of the individual.
challenging
dark
emotional
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
adventurous
challenging
dark
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Physical abuse, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, War, Classism
What an interesting story! I liked it; it was very different from most books you read - think of four short stories that are related, but don't really intersect. I would definitely recommend!