Reviews with content warning for Xenophobia - The Goblin Emperor

This was a recommendation from Mr B's Reading Spa, which came my way by the wonderful Rhian. It was an altogether deeply enjoyable book in ways that were quite surprising. Maia was an interesting lead character, with a whole load of baggage and a mind set on not letting it guide his way as an Emperor. It made him deeply appealing, and much relatable, in the way that any of us would feel about coming into a position of great power and being unwilling to abuse it.

I enjoyed Maia's commitment to being a good Emperor, his willingness to admit his faults and his clever way with people. While he obviously comes into the story as an unexperienced ruler, he has all the hallmarks of a good ruler, and his difficult journey and embarrassments make it all the more relatable. Some very quotable scenes are owed entirely to his diamond of a fiancée, who deserves much credit for her brilliant turns of phrase!

Highly recommended.

Content Warnings

orvillefartenbacher's review

Go to review page

emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

4.25

On paper, there are a lot of reasons I shouldn’t have liked this book. I am no stranger to lore dumps and enjoy being thrust into the middle of a story and figuring it out as we go. But- the pace at which complicated names and places were thrust at the reader is dizzying. I almost thought I’d DNF this book for that alone.
Our MC (the most lovable MC I’ve ever encountered) is thrust into a world where he is completely lost and out of his depth. As I decided to let some of the titles and names wash over me, I felt the same. Perhaps this was a choice by the author, or maybe I just struggled, but it was immersive.
Very little happens in this book. It is not a nonstop action piece, rather a series of interactions and a lot of body language. Overall I am pleased to have stuck it out. I’m not sure whether I’ll continue the series since by TBR pile is bananas, but I’ll keep it on my list for sure.

Content Warnings

hannan_'s review

Go to review page

challenging hopeful inspiring reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

Would have probably enjoyed this a lot more with a simpler naming convention and a glossary that wasn’t 30 pages long.

Overall, nice and slow story — there isn’t too much action, and any action is very very curt.

Katherine Addisons main strength comes in her characterization. Maia is such a complex, empathetic character. The way he thinks about other characters also brings them to life. Maia’s longing for companionship, working through his trauma, his developing emotional intelligence, and overall kindness was a delight to read. The most unrealistic part of this story? The fact that he’s a teenage boy (18, but still…).

I do think that there were some themes that were introduced that I felt could have been explored a bit more. For example, I felt that the prejudice that goblins felt in the elven court (including Maia) was hinted at but never fully resolved. (Which, now thinking about it, might have been intentional on the author bc can racism be solved overnight?) another aspect is that Maia learns of a fortress built on top of a sacred indigenous burial ground, and feels bad about it— but this conflict was brought up and never resolved (maybe in a future novella?)

This is often recommended as a “cozy” fantasy. While 80% is cozy, I’d recommend checking content warnings for the other 20%, because they are quite grim, to the extent that I wouldn’t recommend this as a cozy fantasy.

I think that the pacing was nice and slow, and the beginning was super interesting. There was a middle book slump, but a really engaging payoff in the last 150ish pages. The book just takes a while to set up this complex net of a political machination.

The world building was complex. It presented this small slice of this larger world, alluding to but not fully developing the world beyond the court.

I think my biggest problem is that for the first time in my life, I’ve had trouble juggling characters in my head. There were so many, and each of them had multiple names and titles based on an imaginary and unnecessarily complex naming system. There were so many similar names, from people who weren’t related, making it even worse. Addison needed to realize, that naming 10 people in a paragraph— some multiple times with different titles and different honorifics— made it impossible to read. I’d understand if the naming system was based off of an already established culture, but you had terms 20+ characters long, and a 30 page glossary which took up alot of time to get through and really broke immersion in the story.

Thankfully, there were parts where I realized I didn’t necessarily need to recall who a person was. But there were also multiple parts in the story where I had to put the book down to take a breather because the book was throwing alot of information at you at once.

Content Warnings

r_gale's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous hopeful slow-paced

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

3.75

Enjoyed this book a lot more then I thought I would, there was alot most about the internal working of a made up government then I though I would be interested in but I struggled to put the book down.

Touches on serious subjects in a sensitive way, (without glorifying them or them getting upsetting).

I Loved Maia the main character and can't wait to read what he gets up to next. Want more of Vedero and Csethiro!

Content Warnings