Reviews with content warning for Injury/Injury detail - Red Sister

Albeit an interesting read, filled with wonderful writing, thoughts and several "perfect sentences", I can't help but feel let down by the blandness of the clichéd world and characters. Pretty predictable in most cases, the world-building is uninspiring and the antagonists are one-dimensional.

The world seemingly tries not to be Earth, yet they use the Arabic alphabet. That was pretty unnecessary and immersion shattering. Then, the main villain of this book is evil just because he is, fueled by his genetics that make him strong way above average ("fingers around which a child can't wrap their own fingers", and then predictably he gets possessed by demons and becomes even eviler. Give me a break.

None of the characters seem to matter or their deeds to carry enough weight. It is obvious what everyone's next move will be, there's no surprise, whole most of the storyline could have happened without them. When they perish, that fact doesn't really do much in this grim world.

A tortured donkey elicits a bigger emotional response than most of the people who have very little to their character besides some quirks. Possibly because that is the only instance where some sort of justice isn't served instantly.

There are some other clichés, like an implied sci-fi past, which is fine though not much is revealed, and two types of magical power sources: the one that can be "tapped" into at the risk of corruption, and the other that grants more power while in the proximity of some sort of "phlebotinum". Yet, my biggest issue with the whole book was obviously the troublesome eugenics trope. Not only is it boring that some people are different without merit, but it is a stupid and dangerous idea, as anyone with common sense has already realised. This idea doesn't help the narrative as it doesn't involve me, as a reader, deeper into the lore. It doesn't serve as a key element to the plot, the book could have done without it. I just shake my head whenever it is mentioned. And then there are "blood mixings" with some of the people being "pure" while others even a "perfect mix" of sorts. Don't get me wrong: the book is not racist in the modern sense, but this idea – that some are born to be better in some way than those of different bloodlines – is just lame to me and averts me from the world of the novel.

In many ways, it is an ambiguous novel, with some qualities shining through the lines, while some problems drag it down into the mediocre. Exposure is often written just a few breaths before they become relevant, while some events are embedded throughout and serve as a genuine surprise in retrospect. It often reads like a young adult novel, with ideas that have been old and overused more than twenty years ago. Yet, there are plentiful gems inside it in terms of engaging, masterful writing and witty thoughts that make it rise above the average young adult novel (and increase my rating). For that alone, it was a worthwhile journey.

Sadly the ending, while pretty much sudden and a cutting off with a cliffhanger, doesn't draw me to explore further.

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bluejayreads's review

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adventurous dark emotional tense

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

5.0

I was trying to come up with a catchy introduction, maybe something about why I picked up this book or why there are so many books about nunneries training nuns to fight and/or kill. But I couldn’t think of anything really creative, so let’s just say this: I love this book.

Nona is angry. She is so full of rage – and honestly, she has every right to. Everyone in her village hated her, her mother sold her into slavery, she was sentenced to death for trying to protect her friend, and the abbess who saved her from the gallows expects her to be grateful even though she didn’t bother to save her friend from hanging too. The book never condemns her for being angry, and in many places her rage is a gift that helps her, and I love that. She also gets some stellar character growth, learning what it means to have friends and be a friend. (Considering her struggles with understanding interpersonal relationships and how similar they are to mine, I headcanon her as autistic. The book itself never makes any such diagnosis, though, if autism even exists in this world.)

If I took time to discuss every single side character in this story, we’d be here all day, but each and every one of them was great. Every girl in Nona’s core friend group has her own personality without relying too heavily on tropes. Even the more minor characters felt like fully-realized people in their own right, with hopes and dreams and goals and fears, and (with the exception of two minor antagonists, one of which became less of an antagonist in the end) they were all likeable.

This world is fascinating, and the worldbuilding is done spectacularly. The entire world is almost entirely frozen, and the ice threatens constantly to take everything. The heat of the moon warms a narrow strip around the middle of the world – known as the Corridor – which is where most people live. Long ago there were four different tribes with different gifts, and when they migrated to the Corridor for safety they intermingled. Though rare, their gifts can show up with varying degrees of power in some people. There is so much more that I could talk about and even more that I have probably forgotten. This is a stunningly complex and fully-realized world.

You get no real idea about what the story is actually about from the back cover. The powerful people after Nona are just the nobleman she hurt and his father, who have a grudge against her because she wasn’t hanged. There is a prophecy about a person with all four tribes’ gifts who will be able to do something important. There’s learning and training and facing challenges in the Sweet Mercy convent as Nona goes through her studies. There some politics happening outside the convent. And there is blood and violence and magic.

Nona’s magic helps her fight, and she is deadly. She was born to killing. If you like stories about protagonists who are supernaturally good at violence, who surprise everybody else with their sheer power to deal out death, and who are holding back their true power until the climax when they are forced to reveal it, you will love Nona and this story.

I am not getting across all the fantastic things about this book. It has action and violence and supernatural powers, yes, but it’s also about friendship and the uses of prophecy and how thinking differently can be the answer. I adored every single thing about this book, and I am absolutely going to read book two. I love this world, I adore Nona herself, it combines thrilling violence with poignant themes, the side characters are great, and I really, really want more.

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