Reviews tagging 'Death'

Sing for the Coming of the Longest Night by Iona Datt Sharma, Katherine Fabian

2 reviews

emily_mh's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Before I get into the good stuff, I wanted to note two areas with which I struggled here: the writing style and the ending. The writing style was done in the third-person present, which has to be one of my least favourite combinations. I also think some passages needed to be edited for clarity, because there is still one at the beginning of the first chapter that I can’t fully parse. Aside from these gripes, I did enjoy the humour of the writing style. My issue with the ending wasn’t how things ended, but the pacing of it. The first half of the book slowly increases the pace and tension, and then the story loses all of this in the extended church scenario for the second half. Like, we were solving multiple clues in the first half and ONE in the second. So there was no build-up to the climax, and then the climax itself happened at break-neck speed. One other little criticism I had was that I wish we’d seen more of Meraud and his partners in retrospective introspection, as him being missing is the focal point of the book, yet we don’t really see him or his relationships with Layla and Nat in depth.

I did, however, think the character work with Layla and Nat, our two MCs, was great. Despite this being a novella, I really got a feel for who these two were. They also had solid character development. Layla’s was centred around opening up to her partner more, as well as taking her relationship with Meraud more seriously. Nat’s was kind of similar, in that he realised he wanted to define his relationship with Meraud more clearly. Moreover, both of them learned to respect one another and grew to love each other (platonically).

This story had such a beautiful depiction of polyamory. It’s shown as this normal, loving way of being. The depiction is honestly indicative of the way queerness in general is portrayed in the book, namely as something everyday and something subversive, that makes the world both beautiful and better. I loved this quote in particular: “Meraud queers the air around him: makes it burst into warmth and light when it had no intention of doing so.”

The magic system was really intriguing and unique, which is a feat for a novella. I liked how objects in the world could be representatives for concepts when spellmaking; for example, driftwood representing drifting.

I was pleasantly surprised with how the plot turned out to be a treasure hunt, and apart from the aforementioned final church clue, I thought it was well-executed. Overall this was a solid 4 star read and I’d be keen to check out other works by the authors.

Rep: polyamorous bisexual British-Indian MC, Jewish genderqueer MC, polyamorous bisexual SC, sapphic SC, nonbinary Jewish SC, nonbinary SC
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immodestgender's review

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adventurous emotional funny mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book was so queer it made me feel at home. It was done so well, it felt so authentic and real. I couldn't put it down for that fact alone.
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