Reviews with content warning for Cannibalism - The City of Dusk

Reviews tagging 'Cannibalism'

winterstar's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

I wanted to LOVE this book, but it ended up being middling for me. Started off great, with smooth prose and engaging pacing, then that all kind of unraveled into a slog. Then the last 15% or so was fantastic.

Enjoyed: interesting world, intriguing plot, great tone and flavor, characters genuinely not afraid to get dark and weird and complicated.

Didn't vibe with: meandering middle, a few of the characters I found either bland or insufferable, some clunky storytelling and truly confusing moments, prose that was way more tell than show.

Overall I was driven more by curiosity about what the gods were up to, and interest in the different realms, than in the characters. It's hard to say where exactly this goes wrong, because I connected with the characters at first, but as the book went on and I spent more time with each one, they all started to seem a little flat. Ironically, so much of what the characters are thinking and feeling is hammered in. There were so many scenes I wish the writing would have just let speak for themselves, rather than hamfistedly explaining their significance; on the other hand, there were a few crucial scenes that tried to convey everything through implication, and could have used more clarity. I really liked a few individual lines and paragraphs of the writing, which vacillates between truly evocative and shockingly clumsy.

I think the book is worth reading if a dark, complex world and plot as well as a few interesting characters are enough to keep you interested. I'll be picking up the sequel to see if it's an improvement, since I really enjoyed the last chunk of the book and the cliffhanger left me wanting to know more.

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lktx's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

More telling than showing.

Favorite quote:
“Grief was not a simple thing. It crushed and gnawed, turning you to gristle between its teeth. When it eventually spat you out, it left you broken down and stripped into layers, left you to carefully rebuild what had survived and discard what no longer fit.“

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vjlp22_reader's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-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? No

3.5

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iforgotilivedhere's review

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adventurous dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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luckykosmos's review

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dark tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Reading this one was a doozy, because the things I didn't like, I hated, but the things I liked, I adored. The biggest detractor was the pacing - skimming over the other reviews, some said it was too fast, some said it was too slow, but really it was very uneven. The world is beautifully imagined, but the lore is a slog to get through in the first third, because there's so much of it. Now that it's established, I'm hoping book 2 can hit the ground running, but this is a book that would have benefited from in-world lore inserts (textbooks excerpts or letters, for example) between chapters, just so less needed to be explained.

On the other hand, I loved the character. The whole last third of the book was a doozy and kept me company during a bad bout of insomnia. For the size of the cast by the end, all of the main and most of the secondary characters had distinct personalities and motivations, and the way Sim wove them together in the last act was masterful. My one exception is

Fin - I like his place in the larger plot, but not really where he belongs in Nikolas' story. This might be personal preference, but the amount witheld made it hard to grow attached to him the way I did with, for example, Cosima or Jas, who play similar roles.

I settled on a 4 because, while the issues I had did take me out of the experience and went on for a solid chunk of a long book, I think those won't be an issue in book 2 (at least to the same degree), and I really do adore this cast.

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