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4.17 AVERAGE
4.17 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Fast, thrilling read. I mostly feel a great deal of pause around how this book thinks of enslaved people (esp considering spoilers I read about the final book). Hard time putting my finger on it but something about the Sancia's sense of herself as an object because of her experience as an enslaved person....in an experience that almost exactly mirrors irl Carribean chattle slavery conditions.....doesn't sit the best and feels very....white. I also had issues with the blatant fatphobia and almost total negative rep of queer men. After a certain point, I honestly wish we had more perspectives from the poor of Tevanne who are almost completely portrayed as passive victims of poverty, magical warfare, you name it. I started feeling uncomfortable with the broad brush their experiences were painted with since we're forced to empathize so much with the "good" guys of the noble classes. I also truly hated the take on "justice" via Gregor which was sooooo steeped in cop mentality like.....Justice will come when the poor of Tevanne feast on you and your mom lol Not when you can toss thieves in prison? Overall kind of mixed messaging on revolution and power.
Final bit of contention is how Estelle's character went which felt like had some real interesting moments/glimmers but I don't know why people always paint power hungry women with the same scorned brush??
Final bit of contention is how Estelle's character went which felt like had some real interesting moments/glimmers but I don't know why people always paint power hungry women with the same scorned brush??
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
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:
Yes
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
This was not quite as brilliant for me as The Tainted Cup, which I loved, but was still compelling; I bought the next one. I really don't enjoy crapsack worlds and indeed this aspect of the book was not my favourite but he does a good job of it generally.
I love this type of book, i fell like i'm teading a piece of heaven
Sancia has my heart and my soul
Sancia has my heart and my soul
got this an an ARC; just like City of Stairs books, Bennett creates a surprising and scary fictional world and populates it with real thinking, feeling characters the reader cares about. I hesitate between a 3 and 4 for this one, because there were some pacing infelicities that felt like some parts were too repetitive and the author could have achieved just as much or more without so much of the same leaping from roofs on a chase through the campos (again...)
adventurous
funny
slow-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:
No
When the key starts talking, I hear a stand-up comedian. Something in between Eddie Murphy and the crustacean in that Disney movie with the Ariel story minus the death and sadness. Keeping in mind that the key in question is an ancient sentient artifact, and that the world in which it exist is a mix between Renaissance Venice and Ayn Rand's idea of heaven with magic, I hope you'll forgive me for putting the book down, kinda forever (no, I am not honest here. If I find a hardcover copy for free, I may use it to prop my tablet.)
I should have seen it coming. The walled, guarded waterfront from where nobody could escape short of a daring, dangerous, ingenious master plan going perfectly... Oh look she threw a magic version of a bomb in the yard and, of course, all the guards including their cunning, famous boss run to the explosion, leaving the entrance, well, unguarded. After the boss himself had heard something suspect in the SAFE vault. Yeah sure, Jane. This was the second scene of the first chapter. I should never have made it to the part with the talking key.
A pity, though. The idea of industrialised magic based on reality overwriting was extremely cool, which is why I kept reading after noticing:
- the juvenile use of language
- the improbable plot-solving mechanisms (see bombs in the yard) already abundant in the first ten pages (whoa)
- the total lack of flesh on the bones of the setting: we are TOLD that the city looks like this and that, never SHOWN
- the Katniss-copycat heroine (aaaargh). Sorry guys, I grew up reading adult literature since I was too young to do a lot of other things, even by problematic teenager standards. No YA in this house.
That key talking like that, though, was too much. I give in. What a waste.
I should have seen it coming. The walled, guarded waterfront from where nobody could escape short of a daring, dangerous, ingenious master plan going perfectly... Oh look she threw a magic version of a bomb in the yard and, of course, all the guards including their cunning, famous boss run to the explosion, leaving the entrance, well, unguarded. After the boss himself had heard something suspect in the SAFE vault. Yeah sure, Jane. This was the second scene of the first chapter. I should never have made it to the part with the talking key.
A pity, though. The idea of industrialised magic based on reality overwriting was extremely cool, which is why I kept reading after noticing:
- the juvenile use of language
- the improbable plot-solving mechanisms (see bombs in the yard) already abundant in the first ten pages (whoa)
- the total lack of flesh on the bones of the setting: we are TOLD that the city looks like this and that, never SHOWN
- the Katniss-copycat heroine (aaaargh). Sorry guys, I grew up reading adult literature since I was too young to do a lot of other things, even by problematic teenager standards. No YA in this house.
That key talking like that, though, was too much. I give in. What a waste.