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rcsreads's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-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? Yes
4.0
This was a lot more violent than I was expecting. I think all the chat of fantasy and cities of poets had led me to expect something like The Starless Sea. This is much more a tale of political unrest and corruption.
Each Canto is like a short story following a different character within the city with their stories merging unexpectedly as the book draws to a violent conclusion.
It was very readable but comes with a trigger warning for basically everything you can think of! If you're not squeamish I recommend it.
Each Canto is like a short story following a different character within the city with their stories merging unexpectedly as the book draws to a violent conclusion.
It was very readable but comes with a trigger warning for basically everything you can think of! If you're not squeamish I recommend it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Terminal illness, War, Pedophilia, Kidnapping, Forced institutionalization, Fire/Fire injury, Excrement, Cursing, Blood, Religious bigotry, Emotional abuse, Drug use, Death of parent, Death, Addiction, Sexual violence, Alcohol, Violence, Drug abuse, Torture, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual content, Rape, Physical abuse, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Gore
laurareads87's review against another edition
I’ve opted to DNF this book; I made it to 65%. It was difficult to push through as far as I did; I had resolved to finish the book for the purposes of writing a full and complete review, but ultimately some of the body horror content led me to put it down.
What I appreciate about this book: I appreciate when a book’s world-building is so intricate that the city becomes, in a sense, the lead character of the book: Cadenza was developed in this way, and the multiple POV storytelling gave a thorough and multi-faceted portrayal of the city. Beckerlegge’s writing style is, I think, well suited to a book in which many of the characters are poets.
What didn’t work for me: A section which very graphically described a plague quarantine building in which various forms of torture, including sexual torture, were occurring led me to put it down. This book calls for pretty much every content warning one can come up with. It was also not what I expected at all based on the description – maybe I just didn’t read far enough, but in the first 65% there were really no fantasy elements in the book; it was a historical fiction novel focused on the power politics of a fictionalized Italian city. The premise – the politics of a city of poetry – I was very much intrigued by, but ultimately the book didn’t quite live up to my excitement for the premise.
A POV is never returned to as far as I can tell, which was an interesting storytelling strategy; I ultimately thought it worked, giving many angles on the city, though I did think that some of the POVs were far more compelling than others – some I thought could’ve been entire books unto themselves, while others I could’ve done without.
Finally, and most seriously, I have some deep reservations with how gender is depicted in this book. The city depicted is deeply patriarchal and most of the POV characters are men – neither of these factors is necessarily a problem in and of itself; however, these combined with a few other issues do add up to a serious problem as far as I’m concerned. The female characters in the book are consistently sexually objectified, often described in terms of body parts and physical appearance and little else. Women in this book are not developed into multi-faceted individual personalities at all. On top of this, a significant number of the male characters in the book are sexually violent and predatory, with women for the most part only present in the book as victims of male characters’ violence. The result is a pervasive sense that women, in this book / city, exist only to be subject to violence and are described almost exclusively by way of misogynist commentary. On this basis, I cannot recommend this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Blood, Body horror, Body shaming, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Excrement, Fatphobia, Forced institutionalization, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical content, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Stalking, Torture, Violence, Vomit, and War
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