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annchi's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Suicide attempt and Violence
clarabooksit's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Graphic: Blood, Murder, Bullying, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Self harm, Emotional abuse, Violence, Toxic relationship, Death, Chronic illness, Body horror, Child abuse, and Abandonment
Moderate: Torture, Mental illness, Classism, Kidnapping, and Animal death
minervacerridwen's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5
From the opening letter, I was hooked by the story. Events immediately took off, and meeting Nita, the tension between the sisters was immediately palpable, even as a lot of information about the characters was being shared. The pacing was inconsistent - suddenly it skipped seven years, and I had to recover from the time jump as if it had been my first ride in a TARDIS. Only to be dragged along with just as much enthusiasm into the next part, and the next, never knowing what the destination might be, but fully absorbed in the journey.
I adore so many different aspects of this book. The writing style! The footnotes (and the way the typesetting was somehow so cleverly done that reading them never made me get lost in the original sentence)! The cover! The poetry! The worldbuilding! And most of all: the main character, Lanie! It's such a breath of fresh air to have such a positive main character, without it ever feeling fake. Every other emotion is welcomed and even explored, but the way Lanie looks around herself in the world and LOVES made me want to read about her forever.
There was a lot of description and background information, but to me it stayed just on this side of balanced, enriching the worldbuilding. At many times Saint Death's Daughter felt like the book equivalent of a pastry, or a whole bag of them. Sweet, layered, with a hidden core of sharp citrus tartness every now and then. Covered with a suspiciously blood red mirror glaze and sprinkled with crushed skeleton flakes. (As you may notice, it is also one of those books that makes me confirm my love for language and stories and books in general, and renews my inspiration and will to write.)
I marked a lot of content warnings (and possibly even missed some), as this is a story of someone born in a family of assassins and torturers, in a world with a history of war and hate against neighbouring nations - but much more importantly, I do want to mention that in spite of all that, an incredible amount of kindness is shown throughout the story. It's about death, but it's also bright and colourful, inspiring and hopeful. I look forward to the sequel.
Moderate: Death of parent, War, Fire/Fire injury, Child abuse, Death, Self harm, Suicide attempt, Murder, Animal cruelty, Blood, Gore, Grief, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Emotional abuse, Torture, Violence, Vomit, and Gaslighting
smileyblue's review against another edition
- 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
I was impressed by how deeply character-driven the plot was given that "new" magical properties are introduced at intervals. Despite some involvement of the world's twelve gods, at no point did it ever feel nauseatingly deus-ex-machina. Character deaths, too, felt in line with the story, not chosen to pluck at the reader's heartstrings.
All this praise aside, I found myself hungering for more of the first part of the book. In some ways, it felt like the heart of the story was with fifteen-year-old Lanie. Cooney's voice truly sparkled off the page when working with young Lanie's voice, reminding me of the whimsy of Terry Pratchett's Discworld. Perhaps this glittering nostalgia helped underpin the pain and nostalgia of the later portions of the book, but I wished to have had a bit more.
Graphic: Violence, Blood, Bullying, Child abuse, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Chronic illness, Gore, Grief, Mental illness, Body horror, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Murder, Self harm, Animal cruelty, Death, Physical abuse, and Torture
Moderate: Drug use, Kidnapping, and Alcohol
hybridhavoc's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
I was also initially a little thrown off by wildly different tones in the book, but it turned out that there were pretty decent in-world reasons for this.
That actually makes sense. Saint Death's Daughter and Nettle & Bone are both firmly fantastical fantasy. Nettle & Bone was likened to a modern fairy tale and I would agree with that. Saint Death's Daughter feels like it's walking a similar path to me.
If you're a fan of epic fantasy or Sanderson fantasy and you come into this book with that expectation, you may be disappointed.
My only issues with the book are:
- The structure thing I've already mentioned, which stopped being a real issue once I reoriented.
- Action and tension are often paused for exploring a character's feelings/thoughts or touching moments.
- The ending felt a bit unsatisfactory.
Yes, Miscellaneous saved the day but granting mercy and being banished just wasn't what I wanted there.
Moderate: Slavery, Animal death, and Suicide attempt
Minor: Torture, Bullying, Blood, Death of parent, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Chronic illness, Death, Cursing, and Murder
sashahc's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Violence, Murder, and Death of parent
Moderate: Gaslighting and Domestic abuse
skywhales's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
but good god the WORLDBUILDING. FUCK. we've got a pantheon of unique gods, an intricately designed magic system and possibly the most interesting take on necromancy i've seen to this day, a calendar and dates system, multiple cultures and languages and Rituals and Holidays and ohhhhhmygod i wish EVERY book had this much going on in its world. made my own little glossary of terms i thought i'd need to keep track of (learned from baru) but didn't end up needing it all that much and that was nice. quadic being in iambic pentameter was incredibly delightful. i actually wish we'd learned more about the different kinds of magic. like i know each one is tied to a god but if the parliament of rooks has 24 wizards with different abilities in it which gods have domain over multiple abilities? which goes with which? especially if they usually don't have necromancers/fire wizards. so 10 gods and 24 strains of magic. also are the parliament of rooks' bird patterns literally fused to their skin? unrelated. god i love a richly detailed world.
the prose was at times really good, at times a tad grating. there were some things that probably could have done with less description. and also--and i am aware that in this instance this is solely personal preference--i'm usually not a fan of "quirky" humor and there were certain things that just made me roll my eyes or cringe. loved most of the dark humor associated with the stones and their fucked up bloody legacy though. exactly my kind of thing. something that i don't know was intentional or not was just how little time was spent on certain things that to me felt like Big Revelations but to lanie i guess were just. whatever? or she already knew but didn't state?
it took me a while to come around on most of the characters--longer than some books would have, but then in other books i may never have come around at all so really it all balances out i suppose. lanie was cute--there was an air of Super Special Unique Awesomeness about her that annoyed me at first but i love how she loves her creations. mak was okay, not like an all time favorite or someone i could see myself getting mentally ill about but he was a solid, well-rounded and likable character. datu was fun. i like morbid children. havoc and the gyrgardu/gyrlady duo whose names i have sadly Already Forgotten were...fine. havoc was the source of a lot of the quirky humor that annoyed me (i like her name though), and while i liked the other two more they were all introduced too late in the story for me to really feel completely attached to them. the story of the gyrgardu/gyrlady duo forming their bond was very sweet though. goody was one of my favorite characters and i definitely think her relationship with lanie was the most powerful in the book for me. nita was...conflicting. i just strongly dislike the idea of any character being quintessentially "born bad" and the story seemed insistent on telling me that that's what nita was like. i also strongly disliked the back cover's use of "psychotic" to refer to her when that's a real mental illness that doesn't automatically equate to an evil or dangerous person. i would have appreciated her role in the story a lot more if she wasn't portrayed as unrepentantly evil even as a child and rather as someone working to live up to the legacy of the stoneses and gradually losing more and more of her humanity along the way, until her hubristic downfall. also i think i would have really liked unnatural stones if he was. an actual character. the blackbird bride was a pretty good villain even if i wish i could've seen more of her motivation. i mean i know her Obvious motivation but i want to know more about her feelings. the feelings of the rest of the parliament. yknow. also unless i misread something she married her cousin which EWWWWW. i fucking hate reading about incest no matter the justification. it automatically makes my reading experience at least 15% more unpleasant. sorry if that makes me a prude or whatever. i don't care.
the romance was a little saccharine at times and not entirely my favorite thing but at least canon lir was a pretty interesting character and the twist at the end was sufficiently OH SHIT! i just wish there had been more substance to it than "childhood friends endlessly fawning over each other." btw this book seems to (but to be fair this is conjecture) operate on an "everyone is bi" mindset, or at least all of the main characters are (probably), which isn't my faaaavorite kind of lgbt+ fantasy world? just because i think there should also be a place for people who have fought to have their identity recognized as not having anything to do with men/women. but, like, it's leagues better than an "everyone is straight except for a few weirdos" world. and nita might have been straight. but that doesn't really mean anything.
the climax of this book was So Stinking Cool. the kinda thing that makes the thirteen year old boy part of me go a little bit apeshit. i love awesome climaxes i love awesome worldbuilding that was soooooo fucking epic.
of all the books i've read this would be the one i'd recommend most decisively to locked tomb fans. it's got the necromancy yeah but it's also got the casual genderfuckery and the deep intense bond between a warrior/caster duo that isn't necessarily romantic. and cringy dialogue. sorry locked tomb fans.
will be reading the sequel when it comes out but after i've made a substantial dent in my tbr because i need time to let the whole thing sink into my head and i kinda rushed through this one because i'm going back to boston in a few weeks and need to limit the amount of books i bring.
Graphic: Violence, Murder, and Death
Moderate: Blood and Child abuse
Minor: Incest
tah_014's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Moderate: Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Violence, Murder, and Death
displacedcactus's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
If you like books with rich world building, complicated characters and relationships, and you can handle the massive pile of trigger warnings, go ahead and give this book a try.
Graphic: Chronic illness, Injury/Injury detail, and Violence
Moderate: Death, Child abuse, and Animal cruelty
Minor: Slavery and Death of parent
Animal cruelty/violence against animals:5aru's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
Graphic: Death, Murder, and Violence
Moderate: Emotional abuse and Domestic abuse