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3.35 AVERAGE
3.35 AVERAGE
adventurous
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
funny
hopeful
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This one was another Libro.fm ALC for the month that turned out to be a fun read/listen! It was an interesting new concept with the spice trade being something that the country runs off of economically and culturally and yet the only people able to make the actual trades are marked at birth and othered, but not in a good way. Instead they are forced to become slaves of the trade and live in bad conditions.
Definitely some social commentary here along with the fantasy and hint of romance. my favorite part is probably the rich world building. The downside is that there is some slow pacing throughout.
Definitely some social commentary here along with the fantasy and hint of romance. my favorite part is probably the rich world building. The downside is that there is some slow pacing throughout.
Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins for the advance reader copy.
This was an intriguing debut but I think it was a b too long. We receive a lot of information and I don’t feel like I was able to connect well with the characters.
There were some great parts of the book which kept me reading and others which caused me to put the book down and read something else.
Overall a good debut but could have done with some more edits.
This was an intriguing debut but I think it was a b too long. We receive a lot of information and I don’t feel like I was able to connect well with the characters.
There were some great parts of the book which kept me reading and others which caused me to put the book down and read something else.
Overall a good debut but could have done with some more edits.
slow-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
This story is about Amir, a spice carrier in this world with 8 kingdoms, and each kingdom specializes in one kind of spice. Everyone is "obsessed with or addicted to" (not really sure, both are being mentioned) all the spices. Only big bummer, the only way to get the spices from other kingdoms is by going through the Spice Gates. Bigger Bummer, only a select few people (mostly men, why women are not with them is not speciffied, only that is is really rare for a woman to be a spice carrier) are able to pass through the Spice Gates without too much consequences. Normal people will have to swallow a poison to be able to pass through the gates.
Unfortunately for Amir, he is a carrier and he lives in a world where the only people capable of keeping the economy on its feet are the lowest of the low. They are simply being abused and their life is aweful. So Amir wants to get away from this life and wants to take his family with him.
The first 20% was a lot of confusion, so much worldbuilding and changes of scenery that I could never follow where the hell Amir was. Then there was the revelation of the 9th kingdom and things started to settle down and pick up a bit. The story started to move along a path that I could follow. But after the mid part everything went into big confusion again.
Amir is also not very sure in what he wants to do. He is constantly changing his mind as to what he will do. Sometimes multiple times within the same chapter. He also is a very passive character. When there is action he will not step in to do anything, even when it includes someone he cares for. These constant changes in his choises drove me nuts. Make up your freaking mind and stick with what you choose!
While the story progresses, we learn more about this entity, called The Mouth. I had to do a double take to make sure it was really The Mouth. Okay, kinda makes sense with the spices and stuff, but the Mouth?! Weirded me out quite a bit.
Also as we progress and learn more about it, we learn that the special spice called Olum can be manipulated to produce any of the other spices. So it is basically a stemcel situation that can turn into any of the spices. Also, olum is made by The Mouth and it turns out te be made from its waste, because The Mouth lives inside a mountain in this 9th kingdom. They collect the waste and, process it and then there is Olum. I'm sorry, what? You mean to say that this sacred spice is made from feces from this entity?
Unfortunately for Amir, he is a carrier and he lives in a world where the only people capable of keeping the economy on its feet are the lowest of the low. They are simply being abused and their life is aweful. So Amir wants to get away from this life and wants to take his family with him.
The first 20% was a lot of confusion, so much worldbuilding and changes of scenery that I could never follow where the hell Amir was. Then there was the revelation of the 9th kingdom and things started to settle down and pick up a bit. The story started to move along a path that I could follow. But after the mid part everything went into big confusion again.
Amir is also not very sure in what he wants to do. He is constantly changing his mind as to what he will do. Sometimes multiple times within the same chapter. He also is a very passive character. When there is action he will not step in to do anything, even when it includes someone he cares for. These constant changes in his choises drove me nuts. Make up your freaking mind and stick with what you choose!
While the story progresses, we learn more about this entity, called The Mouth. I had to do a double take to make sure it was really The Mouth. Okay, kinda makes sense with the spices and stuff, but the Mouth?! Weirded me out quite a bit.
Also as we progress and learn more about it, we learn that the special spice called Olum can be manipulated to produce any of the other spices. So it is basically a stemcel situation that can turn into any of the spices. Also, olum is made by The Mouth and it turns out te be made from its waste, because The Mouth lives inside a mountain in this 9th kingdom. They collect the waste and, process it and then there is Olum. I'm sorry, what? You mean to say that this sacred spice is made from feces from this entity?
"Of course the Mouth is here. It lies beneath the mountain. It lies beneath all of us" "It is the only part of the Mouth that flows out of the mountain and into the moats, The farmers in Illindhi gather the waste from these trenches, then preserve and process it into what we call olum. [...] It is our deepest secret, one Madhyra has taken to the outside world. But the Mouth - or at least this gate - appears to awaken when these fecal remains come into contact with the veil."
Seriously, the more I think about this, the more disgusted I become.
It seems this book contains a lot of " bodily fluids", Amir has a thing with "saliva" .
In the book he has "Swallowed a mouthful of saliva", "gulped all of his saliva" and swallowed a whole lot more of his saliva.
Also we learn that the carriers, the men who bear the Mouths sign on their body, are the Mouth's Children. They are the "chosen ones" to travel through its feces, so they can be purified.
Hold on a second. They travel through poop to get purified? Has no one told them poop is not pure and it is disgusting?
Then my brain went haywire and suddenly I could not see the Gates as normal gates. They instantly became extentions of the Mouth's rectum. Sorry not sorry.
Then, lastly. The romance? What?
Amir somehow happens to befriend a princess from another kingdom? How in the world did he manage to do that? Please tell me your secret!
The romance between Amir and Harini felt fake the entire time. We are constantly reminded that Amir loves her but we never see him show his love for her, or her love for him. It felt forced, fake and did not add anything positive to this story. It would have made the story way more interesting if Amir and Kalay ended up having a romance. We see a lot more them being together and this story would have benefitted a small love triangle between these three people.
So, that was my plotwise rant.
The reading and the language use felt all over the place. There was little to no interpretation whatsoever for the reader to form coherent thoughts because everything was already laid out for us. I could not form my own opinion on anything because everything was already being told. Saying that, there was a lot of tell and hardly any show. The story was too written out and it could have benefitted from scratching a lot and leaving bits and pieces out.
I did like the way the spices where intergrated into this story.
Overall I am not a happy camper and I feel like I wasted my time with this book.
I might add onto this review as I am still processing what the hell I read.
DNF at 33%/155 pages
I loved the premise of this story. It sounded fascinating but the execution falls depressingly flat.
There is SO MUCH info dumping. Just so much. It appears everywhere. In between lines of dialogue between different characters so you lose the thread of the conservation, during action moments so you lose the thread of what’s happening in the scene, all over the place.
Along with all the info dumping is also a tremendous amount of telling and not showing.
The dialogue is painful and most of the characters sound exactly the same.
The main character, Amir, is bland and dull, he feels more like a cypher for an idea rather than an actual character.
The romance is cringy and boring.
There is a really interesting story buried somewhere in all this but I just don’t have the patience to see if it turns up or not.
I loved the premise of this story. It sounded fascinating but the execution falls depressingly flat.
There is SO MUCH info dumping. Just so much. It appears everywhere. In between lines of dialogue between different characters so you lose the thread of the conservation, during action moments so you lose the thread of what’s happening in the scene, all over the place.
Along with all the info dumping is also a tremendous amount of telling and not showing.
The dialogue is painful and most of the characters sound exactly the same.
The main character, Amir, is bland and dull, he feels more like a cypher for an idea rather than an actual character.
The romance is cringy and boring.
There is a really interesting story buried somewhere in all this but I just don’t have the patience to see if it turns up or not.
adventurous
challenging
dark
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
this book was just... meh? to be fair, I really liked the premise, and I think most of the execution was done pretty well. what I had issues with mainly were the pacing and the resolution.
pacing: some chapters/scenes were unnecessarily long (they didn't really drive either the plot or the MMC's character growth), while some things were dealt with in a sentence. I feel an improvement in editing would've made this at least a 4-star read for me.
the end: the whole book was about oppression and how the lower castes deserved more but then after the big "resolution", improvements weren't really discussed. I expected more there tbh.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.
pacing: some chapters/scenes were unnecessarily long (they didn't really drive either the plot or the MMC's character growth), while some things were dealt with in a sentence. I feel an improvement in editing would've made this at least a 4-star read for me.
the end: the whole book was about oppression and how the lower castes deserved more but then after the big "resolution", improvements weren't really discussed. I expected more there tbh.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.
*I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.*
The premise is great, but the prose is like nails on a chalkboard, arrhythmic and jerky and unable to decide on a vocabulary style. Odd phrasing, odd word choices… It just…grated, constantly. I forced myself to read the first 25%, hoping it would get better, but there was no sign it was going to improve.
Anything liquid? Like gasoline, or urine, or mercury???
tf is a pruned bottom?
From context it’s clear that this is meant to mean ‘you do not share our secret’ but I don’t know what to do with that phrasing. Who ‘expends’ a secret?
This sounds good right up until I actually start thinking about it, and then it sounds really weird.
At first glance, the worldbuilding was very promising – I am loving the slow increase in Desi-inspired settings! – but it started to fall apart for me really quickly. The foundational premise – that the realms are obsessed with spices – was fine, until we started getting contradictory statements that ‘obsession’ actually meant ‘addiction’. It drove me nuts: are spices addictive in this world or not? One second it’s yes, the next it’s no. Which is it? Is describing it as addiction meant to be hyperbole? THIS IS PRETTY IMPORTANT, I NEED YOU TO BE CLEAR ABOUT THIS!
And then right around the 20% mark there was a HUGE REVEAL, at which point we’re hit with the most ridiculously convoluted reasoning trying to justify why a bunch of incredibly important, powerful people would put the responsibility for ALL THE REALMS in the (dramatically unwilling!) hands of a spice carrier – you know, a member of the caste considered the lowest of the low? Who has no resources, no wealth, no access, no freedom of travel, is only one step up from being property? Yes, this is ABSOLUTELY the person you should conscript into doing this top-secret, ultra-important mission for you!
NOT.
Don’t even get me started on how this guy somehow fell in love with a princess, who returns his feelings. HOW??? How did they even MEET, often enough and long enough to develop a relationship??? And why are you just telling telling telling me how he feels about her, instead of showing me???
The infodumping applied to everything, not just the alleged romance. Tell tell tell.
But the biggest problem was the prose. I could probably have put up with the rest of it – unless the plot got even stupider; seriously, you needed an INFINITELY better reason to put this poor man in the position of [total spoiler] – but the writing style was just…I hated it. And from glancing at other reviews, it looks like the worldbuilding goes down the drain, so really, there just wasn’t anything worth sticking around for, unfortunately. Alas!
The premise is great, but the prose is like nails on a chalkboard, arrhythmic and jerky and unable to decide on a vocabulary style. Odd phrasing, odd word choices… It just…grated, constantly. I forced myself to read the first 25%, hoping it would get better, but there was no sign it was going to improve.
his back was on the verge of detaching from the rest of his body, and his throat ached for anything liquid.
Anything liquid? Like gasoline, or urine, or mercury???
The woman’s face emerged from shadow, revealing her in a stark violet gown and a pruned bottom
tf is a pruned bottom?
“They will also see to it that you do not expend our secret
From context it’s clear that this is meant to mean ‘you do not share our secret’ but I don’t know what to do with that phrasing. Who ‘expends’ a secret?
He could smell a heady scent of honeyed sweetness with a floating hint of pungency, as though the breeze were battling an old foe.
This sounds good right up until I actually start thinking about it, and then it sounds really weird.
At first glance, the worldbuilding was very promising – I am loving the slow increase in Desi-inspired settings! – but it started to fall apart for me really quickly. The foundational premise – that the realms are obsessed with spices – was fine, until we started getting contradictory statements that ‘obsession’ actually meant ‘addiction’. It drove me nuts: are spices addictive in this world or not? One second it’s yes, the next it’s no. Which is it? Is describing it as addiction meant to be hyperbole? THIS IS PRETTY IMPORTANT, I NEED YOU TO BE CLEAR ABOUT THIS!
And then right around the 20% mark there was a HUGE REVEAL, at which point we’re hit with the most ridiculously convoluted reasoning trying to justify why a bunch of incredibly important, powerful people would put the responsibility for ALL THE REALMS in the (dramatically unwilling!) hands of a spice carrier – you know, a member of the caste considered the lowest of the low? Who has no resources, no wealth, no access, no freedom of travel, is only one step up from being property? Yes, this is ABSOLUTELY the person you should conscript into doing this top-secret, ultra-important mission for you!
NOT.
Don’t even get me started on how this guy somehow fell in love with a princess, who returns his feelings. HOW??? How did they even MEET, often enough and long enough to develop a relationship??? And why are you just telling telling telling me how he feels about her, instead of showing me???
The infodumping applied to everything, not just the alleged romance. Tell tell tell.
But the biggest problem was the prose. I could probably have put up with the rest of it – unless the plot got even stupider; seriously, you needed an INFINITELY better reason to put this poor man in the position of [total spoiler] – but the writing style was just…I hated it. And from glancing at other reviews, it looks like the worldbuilding goes down the drain, so really, there just wasn’t anything worth sticking around for, unfortunately. Alas!
AMAZING. this is a halfway-thru review but WOW. i absolutely am loving this unique revolutionary fantasy. The focus on the downtrodden gatecaste and their struggles as they interact with various oppressive systems informs the book and the wordlbuilding is superb, fascinating and fresh! highly recommmend. I won an ARC from goodreads and am leaving an honest review.
medium-paced
Awesome concept. A good extended metaphor for the caste system, though not very subtle at all. I still enjoy reading this type of cultural criticism from an Indian author in a fantasy setting. The romance felt a bit tacked on without depth. I would’ve honestly preferred a romance between kalay and amir instead. Some of the prose was a bit juvenile but still really cool world building.