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3.81 AVERAGE
3.81 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Where this book didn’t start out so great for me, I did end up enjoying it, and then I found myself hella confused. While I felt this book had a bit of a slow start for me, I became very invested with the story as it continued, and where the back and forth duel perspective got on my nerves for a little while, my brain began to go with the flow to the point where I wasn’t huffing every chapter. But when we switch solely to third party narration, I admit I was a little ticked off.
I found it very interesting to learn about the same person in two very different stages of life. While Kihrin’s story was in the present, starting off on an auction block and being sold to The Black Brotherhood, being stranded on an island, and becoming the main fascination of a Dragon. Talon’s story was told in the third person when Kihrin was a boy living in the city as a thief and musician, who’s life was very quickly turned upside down when he was marked by a demon prince, his adoptive family was murdered, and he was found to be a long lost member of a noble household.
I was very interested in both of these stories. I found them both to start out mundane and then slowly add more intricate information and more plot twists with every chapter. While I did feel less frustrated about it the constant chapter by chapter story change, it did still make it somewhat difficult to become fully immersed in either narrative.
Also, I love Galen. Love. Him.
Around chapter 60 was the point this book started to lose me. In Kihrin’s story, it very quickly became a huge information dump that was really hard to follow on audio. I found myself slowly losing momentum to finish as I lost my understanding of what was going on. We were meant to take in the information and put the puzzle together as Kihrin did, but I feel like we weren’t given enough background information to be able to do that.
There was just a whole lot of people being reborn and name changing and marriages and children that were only mentioned and glossed over until their pieces needed to be added to the puzzle, and I found myself confused.
When we got towards the end, I liked the storyline of the plan all the way from how to get away from The Old Man, to Kihrin needing to leave the city as an unfortunate repercussion, and in the last 15 chapters, I can honestly say I was brought right back into the story.
I have mixed feelings about this book. I liked the second quarter, and I liked the last quarter. But the first and third just had me either falling asleep or un-situationally frustrated.
All in all, I gave this book 3 stars and I am planning on reading The Name of All Things upon release on October 29th, 2019.
I found it very interesting to learn about the same person in two very different stages of life. While Kihrin’s story was in the present, starting off on an auction block and being sold to The Black Brotherhood, being stranded on an island, and becoming the main fascination of a Dragon. Talon’s story was told in the third person when Kihrin was a boy living in the city as a thief and musician, who’s life was very quickly turned upside down when he was marked by a demon prince, his adoptive family was murdered, and he was found to be a long lost member of a noble household.
I was very interested in both of these stories. I found them both to start out mundane and then slowly add more intricate information and more plot twists with every chapter. While I did feel less frustrated about it the constant chapter by chapter story change, it did still make it somewhat difficult to become fully immersed in either narrative.
Also, I love Galen. Love. Him.
Around chapter 60 was the point this book started to lose me. In Kihrin’s story, it very quickly became a huge information dump that was really hard to follow on audio. I found myself slowly losing momentum to finish as I lost my understanding of what was going on. We were meant to take in the information and put the puzzle together as Kihrin did, but I feel like we weren’t given enough background information to be able to do that.
There was just a whole lot of people being reborn and name changing and marriages and children that were only mentioned and glossed over until their pieces needed to be added to the puzzle, and I found myself confused.
When we got towards the end, I liked the storyline of the plan all the way from how to get away from The Old Man, to Kihrin needing to leave the city as an unfortunate repercussion, and in the last 15 chapters, I can honestly say I was brought right back into the story.
I have mixed feelings about this book. I liked the second quarter, and I liked the last quarter. But the first and third just had me either falling asleep or un-situationally frustrated.
All in all, I gave this book 3 stars and I am planning on reading The Name of All Things upon release on October 29th, 2019.
Whew. That was a ride! I'm not going to lie, I was so confused towards the beginning of the book. Let us dive in. And as always, spoiler free.
We start off with the MC, Kihrin, who's imprisoned in the current timeline, retelling the events that led to his capture. But he's only telling a partial part of his past. Talon, who has him jailed, is telling the beginning of his story. 3 timelines, told by 2 individuals with a narrator like type popping in here and there with something like footnotes as this overall is a written account by this narrator type individual. I know....confusing.
But overall, once you get the timelines down and understand what's really happening...it's a wild time. The world building is done really well. And all the characters were fantastic. I personally enjoyed Talon, and her telling of Kihrin's past were actually more favorable to me than Kihrin himself. The footnote type narrator had his moments as well. I really enjoyed this and with the outcome of the ending...I'm definitely going to be continuing this series very near in the future. Needed more dragons since it is dragon month for me.
We start off with the MC, Kihrin, who's imprisoned in the current timeline, retelling the events that led to his capture. But he's only telling a partial part of his past. Talon, who has him jailed, is telling the beginning of his story. 3 timelines, told by 2 individuals with a narrator like type popping in here and there with something like footnotes as this overall is a written account by this narrator type individual. I know....confusing.
But overall, once you get the timelines down and understand what's really happening...it's a wild time. The world building is done really well. And all the characters were fantastic. I personally enjoyed Talon, and her telling of Kihrin's past were actually more favorable to me than Kihrin himself. The footnote type narrator had his moments as well. I really enjoyed this and with the outcome of the ending...I'm definitely going to be continuing this series very near in the future. Needed more dragons since it is dragon month for me.
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Found to be confusing, and not very exciting. Too many details at some points. Story doesn't progress fast enough for me.
adventurous
dark
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:
Complicated
I enjoyed reading this book, but it's all so, so complicated. It's like an entire soap opera who is related to who, how, and how much abuse there is. It's handled way more tastefully than a lot of other authors do, so the characters have a quality of resilience that does connect. So much happens, but the back and forth nature of the narrative does feel a bit as if it's mostly just set up. The end has a climax, yet it's very obvious that there's so much left. That's great, in a way. But there are a lot of books in this set, and I am absolutely sure I'm going to forget who everyone is and all that nitty gritty detail by the time I get around to reading the second, so it's pretty daunting.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Slavery
Moderate: Sexual content, War
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Very interesting, deep fantasy world. LOVE the story meta in this with Talon and Kihrin alternating viewpoints. Plus: footnotes!! Yay
This book has great ambition and great promise. Unfortunately, it delivers on neither.
There is a kernel of a good story here. The world Lyons has created is an intriguing one, and I would be interested to learn more about it. However, the worldbuilding is uneven, doled out in frustrating dribs and drabs, and the characterizations are next to nil. A handful of years go by with a vague handwaved nod to 'training'. There is no sense of character development.
A lot of the problems in execution can be traced to the inexplicable, maddening style that shoots this book in the metaphorical foot. The reader is presented with three cacaphonous narratives to juggle - one that starts at the beginning of the story and is told in third-person, one that starts in the middle and is told in first-person, and one that starts at the end and is told in second-person (the footnotes and framing narrative). The first two narratives alternate tiny, three-page chapters that never allow the reader to get immersed in the story before yanking them out again. Inconsistencies, plot holes, and moments of authorial fiat begin to pile up. Characters are shallow and inconsistent, never allowed time to develop, breathe, or deepen. Complications snarl intractably, nearly requiring a color-coded chart to track. The best adjectives to describe the experience of reading this book are "annoying" and "frustrating".
It's disappointing that the book went this way. Had the story been told in a more conventional manner, and more effort and care devoted to characterization and plotting than to what appears to be an effort to be confounding and 'clever' for the sheer hell of it (I could think of no advantage to this awful narrative style), I think this book and series could have been a real winner. There is talent here, though the diamond is unpolished.
As it is, I struggled through this book and finished it, but I have no desire to continue reading the series.
There is a kernel of a good story here. The world Lyons has created is an intriguing one, and I would be interested to learn more about it. However, the worldbuilding is uneven, doled out in frustrating dribs and drabs, and the characterizations are next to nil. A handful of years go by with a vague handwaved nod to 'training'. There is no sense of character development.
A lot of the problems in execution can be traced to the inexplicable, maddening style that shoots this book in the metaphorical foot. The reader is presented with three cacaphonous narratives to juggle - one that starts at the beginning of the story and is told in third-person, one that starts in the middle and is told in first-person, and one that starts at the end and is told in second-person (the footnotes and framing narrative). The first two narratives alternate tiny, three-page chapters that never allow the reader to get immersed in the story before yanking them out again. Inconsistencies, plot holes, and moments of authorial fiat begin to pile up. Characters are shallow and inconsistent, never allowed time to develop, breathe, or deepen. Complications snarl intractably, nearly requiring a color-coded chart to track. The best adjectives to describe the experience of reading this book are "annoying" and "frustrating".
It's disappointing that the book went this way. Had the story been told in a more conventional manner, and more effort and care devoted to characterization and plotting than to what appears to be an effort to be confounding and 'clever' for the sheer hell of it (I could think of no advantage to this awful narrative style), I think this book and series could have been a real winner. There is talent here, though the diamond is unpolished.
As it is, I struggled through this book and finished it, but I have no desire to continue reading the series.
Reread March 2023: Still fucking RIPS. I cannot believe the LORE, it is so intricate and Juicy. Lyons knocked it out of the park and I cannot WAIT to dive into book two again next!
I’ve put off reviewing this hefty novel for almost a month because I just didn’t know how to collect all of my thoughts, so I’m going to try to make this review concise.
Jenn Lyons’ The Ruin of Kings is a shining, spectacular, and intricate work of epic fantasy. The characters are fantastic and incredibly diverse (there’s varied queer representation and the protagonist starts to come into his own bisexuality over the course of the novel). The storytelling convention that makes up part one (an annotated transcription of a conversation) is an inspired and well-executed choice which gives insight into one of the story’s prominent characters. The worldbuilding is wholly original, deliberately layered, and simply awesome. On top of all of this, the story itself is by turns breath-taking, terrifying, inspiring, heart-breaking, & downright astonishing. My singular quibble (and it still didn’t feel right to give this book any less than 5 stars) is that the back-and-forth between the two time periods that make up most of the novel blurred some of the nuance when I was tired or not reading carefully.
My main point here is that I loved this book and Jenn Lyons blew me away. If you’re looking for meaty & delicious high fantasy, look no further. I’m starting the second book The Name of All Things as soon as I can!
I’ve put off reviewing this hefty novel for almost a month because I just didn’t know how to collect all of my thoughts, so I’m going to try to make this review concise.
Jenn Lyons’ The Ruin of Kings is a shining, spectacular, and intricate work of epic fantasy. The characters are fantastic and incredibly diverse (there’s varied queer representation and the protagonist starts to come into his own bisexuality over the course of the novel). The storytelling convention that makes up part one (an annotated transcription of a conversation) is an inspired and well-executed choice which gives insight into one of the story’s prominent characters. The worldbuilding is wholly original, deliberately layered, and simply awesome. On top of all of this, the story itself is by turns breath-taking, terrifying, inspiring, heart-breaking, & downright astonishing. My singular quibble (and it still didn’t feel right to give this book any less than 5 stars) is that the back-and-forth between the two time periods that make up most of the novel blurred some of the nuance when I was tired or not reading carefully.
My main point here is that I loved this book and Jenn Lyons blew me away. If you’re looking for meaty & delicious high fantasy, look no further. I’m starting the second book The Name of All Things as soon as I can!