Reviews - The Tangleroot Palace

376 reviews for:

The Tangleroot Palace

Marjorie M. Liu

3.94 AVERAGE

a_l_deleon's review

4.0

adventurous mysterious reflective medium-paced

The Tangleroot Palace was an interesting collection of short stories. I enjoyed both the stories and the explanations at the end of each story about why the author had chosen to write it the way she did.

vmayne's review

3.0

adventurous medium-paced

graamcracker's review

Marjorie Liu's previous works are fantastic, and The Tangleroot Palace is no exception. The majority of the short stories in this collection read like they were meant to be longer works, but work as stand alones. Liu does a fantastic job of building intricate worlds and characters within the limited number of pages, including a blurb about the inspiration behind the stories. I loved reading these, trying to guess the roots behind the stories. The stories varied in genre, in my opinion, from more horror leaning to sci-fi and romance, which I thoroughly enjoyed. My favorites were "Call Her Savage" and "After the Blood" (I was so disappointed when this last one ended! So many questions!).

Highly recommend for fantasy/speculative fiction fans looking for something to gobble up.

Thank you to Netgalley and Tachyon Publications for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!

rhi_'s review against another edition

1.0

adventurous mysterious slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Content Warnings

cozyscones's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark reflective tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

averhallen's review

3.0

adventurous medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

jetix's review

2.5

adventurous medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

alex_golub's review

3.0

dark reflective fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Liu's speciality in this volume is supernaturally powerful female characters who heroically bear emotional burdens, often enduring sacrifice after sacrifice to create a bright future for others which they themselves often do not get to enjoy. Apparently she is a lawyer so I suspect she does a lot of pro bono work! I found "The Briar and the Rose" to be heartbreakingly beautiful. The other pieces are often good, but sometimes Liu struggles to gracefully fit all the backstory and exposition into a narrative as it unfolds. Also, a lot of these stories are more in the horror genre, which is personally not my thing. YMMV.

stxllcr's review against another edition

4.0

hopeful mysterious reflective fast-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: No

dsouthreads's review

4.5

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

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