Reviews

The Grimoire of Grave Fates by Hanna Alkaf, Margaret Owen

okevamae's review against another edition

3.0

The concept of this book is a unique idea I haven’t seen before: an anthology of interconnected short stories, each by a different author, coming together to tell a murder mystery in a fantasy setting (a magical school, no less.) How could I not pick this one up? The stories are not only told in a standard narrative format – there are also text conversations, interrogation transcripts, and artifacts that flesh out the story. All of the students have different magical talents, and it’s interesting to see so many different magic systems in one book. As always with anthologies, some stories were better than others, but I didn’t feel like there were any really bad ones in this bunch. The one thing that bothered me was the inconsistency of some aspects of the worldbuilding, but I guess that can be expected with multiple authors writing in the same fictional setting, if the rules of the world are not well established. Overall, it was a good (if imperfect) execution of a really unique idea.

Representation: Stories by POC and LGBTQ+ authors about POC and LGBTQ+ characters, disabled characters, characters with mental illness

TW: racist, sexist, homophobic, and transphobic character, bullying of children by teachers

I received an advance copy of this ebook from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

mappelle7567's review

hopeful mysterious 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? Yes

4.5

k_isadore's review

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.75

The strengths of the book are also it's weaknesses. I love the diverse cast of writers and the variety of magic systems, but it began to feel very formulaic very quickly. Introduce a character and their skill, have them fall into the plot, stop at a cliffhanger. There are characters I would be glad to see again and learn more about, and I liked Beatriz and Fibula, but it was sometimes a bit underwhelming because of it's repetitive nature. 

felipemenendez's review against another edition

dark informative mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Well this one was a disappointment 😩 I thought at first that the premise and the whole concept was going to be amazing since it seemed that way… but it wasn’t

I think it needed less POVs and more edit… The whole thing was just so conflicting since it seemed at every turn we were at the starting line again with the murder and instead every character wanted to go on their own direction and it kept adding more lore and more and it was kinda exhausting at a point. Like the whole point of the book, the murder mystery really took a second place to the story…

I must say though Kethura and Diego were the saving grace of this book… there were some POV that could’ve been spared since they didn’t being anything to the story.. like literally just more lore and unnecessary stuff… like Irene being just a mean, selfish friend.

Anyways, I like the diversity and there were some magic systems that I wanted more of since they were pretty interesting. The cultural aspect was good since you get to learn about them and mythology and history. 

All in all, A for effort but D for Execution 😅

bryn_cavin's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

3.25

patchy_at_best's review

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated

4.0

jahnfar's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

bookishexpat's review against another edition

Slow, and not in a good way. The chapters being written by different authors mess with the flow and make it feel fractured. There are also too many POVs and too much details about lots of different magic systems, and not enough how all the characters  and magics fit into the academic setting. 
All the detail and different personalities make it feel like you’re starting over each chapter, which makes it  ultimately tedious to get through. And unfortunately overall it’s just not interesting enough to stick with. 

vtlism's review

I mostly slept to this. I don't like books made of 60 tiny chapters by 60 different authors and 60 different narrators, it's way too much work for little payoff for my attention span. Laborious, for what? Not for me. 

raina_massey's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0