Reviews - The Immortal King Rao

362 reviews for:

The Immortal King Rao

Vauhini Vara

3.7 AVERAGE

kaisaei's review against another edition

4.0

dark emotional informative reflective sad slow-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: Yes

ireadbooksallday's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark 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: Complicated

mmbc's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous challenging dark sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

This is a thought provoking book: a dystopian examination of where our capitalist, tech-idolized society is headed through the eyes of a secondary character. I found the writing to be descriptive and the plot imaginative, but overall a slow book to get through.

mad_taylh's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous challenging slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

"One day, this will all be over. Yet the fact will remain that we were here once, beneath all that lace. The fact needs no proof. We were here. What great fortune. For what? we kept demanding. For what? For what? For what? For what? But when a tree sprouts from the ground, it doesn't demand answers; when its blossoms grow tired and heavy, it lets them drop. After all our trouble, is that it, then? Did it all mean nothing but itself?"

lizzienorthcutt's review against another edition

4.0

reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

greyemk's review against another edition

4.0

slow-paced

This is a good book that was almost great.

We get the life of King Rao, a technology genius who remade the world with his wife and partner, Margie. We get his daughter, Athena, the narrator and King’s last great contribution. There’s a lot in here, commentary on capitalism, surveillance, community, colonialism. The idea of the book is excellent and a well fleshed-out world that explores these ideas.

What didn’t quite work was King’s character! We get three timelines of him - his childhood, adulthood, and parenthood stages, and I didn’t find these to be very compatible. Even with his entire life story, I found his motivations and goals to be unclear and a bit inconsistent throughout the novel and the timelines. He seems a bit hapless but at the same time calculated, in a way that’s not working for me.