Reviews with content warning for Murder - Saint Death's Daughter

My dad spent months begging me to read this, with the caveat that the first 35% is an oppressive slog but then it’s a great found family story. This is very funny, because I liked the first half of the story a lot, lost some interest between 50-75%, and then mostly longed to be put out of my misery for the last 25%. Everyone’s different, I guess!

The beginning was certainly dark, establishing the traumatic history you’re dealing with in these characters, but it also rang emotionally true in a way I think got lost as the book progressed. The choices made in the first half of the book made SENSE to me.

But then… Lanie just kind of turns out to be stupid? I cannot stand incompetent characters and she makes constant, predictable, inexcusable “mistakes” and everything gets really tedious. There’s ZERO sense of urgency, ever, even in VERY URGENT situations. The Bad Guys also have this weird absence of agita and do you know how hard it is to get into a book where no one seems to think any of the stuff going on is high stakes?

And the last chunk… well. There’s a scene around the 75% mark that was supposed to be an exciting, fast paced, emotional action scene and… I think it literally took 2 hours to listen to on the audiobook?? I was literally lying in bed bellowing “GET IT OVER WITH ALREADY” because the scene just WOULD. NOT. WRAP. UP. The same thing happens again at the 85% mark! I was so done and bored and it dragged endlessly.

Anyway, to sum up, Cooney needs a new editor. Bad. This book was a solid 25% longer than it should have been and the tone was wildly inconsistent and in all, I simply wasn’t especially compelled by any of it. It couldn’t decide what it wanted to be.

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minervacerridwen's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

How to start reviewing the ride I've just been on?
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.

Also, the slow-burn relationship between her and Canon Lir is described so beautifully courteously that even I, aromantic ace as I am, swooned.

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.

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smileyblue's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful tense medium-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

Within twenty pages, I fell in love with Miscellaneous ("Lanie") Stones and was entranced by the world that CSE Cooney had crafted. In sharp contrast with gothic, edgy tone adopted by other books with necromancer main characters, the energy of Saint Death's Daughter was bright, loving, and hopeful. The author's prose, reminiscent of parlor room period novels, held down the wondering tone throughout.

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.

For example, after being so horrible to Lanie, Nita's gruesome death struck me as cathartic in a Roald Dahl sort of way.

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.

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hybridhavoc's review

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adventurous emotional mysterious

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

Overall I think this is a pretty good book. The structure gave me some pause part-way through, but only really because I'm so used to books that do the "Part 1/2/3" structure but are just delineating the three acts of their story. This book doesn't do that, and the parts are more akin to episodes of a mini-series.

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.

On surge days

the entire tone shifts into a sort of animated Disney movie sort of feel. Otherwise,

outside of the surge days,

this book's vibe reminds me a lot of Nettle & Bone.

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.

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mariah_storm's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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sashahc's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

I just read “Saint Death’s Daughter” by CSE Cooney. For some reason, the TBR gods have been sending me Necromancers lately. This one has a literal allergy to violence, but was born into a family of assassins and executioners. It’s got court drama, family drama, ghosts, revenants, skeletons, shapeshifters, and a really interesting magic system. There are sweet parts, very grim parts, and it’s delightfully unpredictable and effortlessly queer.

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kbhenrickson's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

There was a lot that I liked in this book - the main character and how she pushes back against tradition to be herself, the world and its gods and rituals, and that events that seemed predictable mostly turned out not as I expected. It was very long, though, and it frustrates me when a character keeps refusing the help you know they need (though I think that is also a very human thing to do). I like that the ending felt complete but there is also the possibility for a second book.

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cloodnook's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

3.75

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