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A review by yulie
Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers
4.0
I actually really liked this book, and it was quite an unexpected surprise. I was trying to find something new to read and picked it up on a whim, and I ended up staying up all night to read it!
While I was very tentative at the beginning (girl is somehow special, girl gets trained in crazy assassination/poison/insane things, girl will probably get handsome love interest and save the day), the development was very gritty and not at all glamorous like some paranormal/fantasy novels can be (ie. trope where girl is so ridiculously special, everyone swoons over her, she is amazingly good at what she does and can, either by accident or by sheer luck, accomplish something no other character can do even though they are way more qualified and experienced than her). Ismae is surely talented, but so are the people around her, and although she is portrayed as fairly good at what she does, it isn't completely outrageous like some books portray their female protagonists. Duval kept up with her and outclassed her at certain steps and she him, and this point really won me over. The two leads had a dynamic.
I didn't expect to be drawn into the political intrigue that was going on in the book but in the end I was quite attentive to it and it was all set out fairly well where the reader wouldn't become bogged down with names. I enjoyed the romance between Ismae and Duval, seeing as although she was head over heels for him, she used her logic and stuck to her guns when it mattered, and valued her own values before him and his. In addition, he was a good guy and not at all the aloof or unkind love interest, which seems to be another weird trope that keeps popping up lately. He genuinely liked her, and was gentle about his advances! Maybe I'm a sucker for a classic romance like that?
It was a really good book, and I would give it 4.5 stars (nudged up to 5 I guess since it really kept me up till 5am!). There's some clumsy writing and a bit of repetitiveness with some of the phrasing used, but nothing that greatly hampered the experience. The concept of the novel was really neat, and it was quite fantastic to not have a female lead that whines a lot about her situation or thinks she's better than others and dismisses them unless they're her love interest (can you tell I'm super fed up with that common stereotype!?)
Quite excited to start the next book which I will probably do tonight!
While I was very tentative at the beginning (girl is somehow special, girl gets trained in crazy assassination/poison/insane things, girl will probably get handsome love interest and save the day), the development was very gritty and not at all glamorous like some paranormal/fantasy novels can be (ie. trope where girl is so ridiculously special, everyone swoons over her, she is amazingly good at what she does and can, either by accident or by sheer luck, accomplish something no other character can do even though they are way more qualified and experienced than her). Ismae is surely talented, but so are the people around her, and although she is portrayed as fairly good at what she does, it isn't completely outrageous like some books portray their female protagonists. Duval kept up with her and outclassed her at certain steps and she him, and this point really won me over. The two leads had a dynamic.
I didn't expect to be drawn into the political intrigue that was going on in the book but in the end I was quite attentive to it and it was all set out fairly well where the reader wouldn't become bogged down with names. I enjoyed the romance between Ismae and Duval, seeing as although she was head over heels for him, she used her logic and stuck to her guns when it mattered, and valued her own values before him and his. In addition, he was a good guy and not at all the aloof or unkind love interest, which seems to be another weird trope that keeps popping up lately. He genuinely liked her, and was gentle about his advances! Maybe I'm a sucker for a classic romance like that?
It was a really good book, and I would give it 4.5 stars (nudged up to 5 I guess since it really kept me up till 5am!). There's some clumsy writing and a bit of repetitiveness with some of the phrasing used, but nothing that greatly hampered the experience. The concept of the novel was really neat, and it was quite fantastic to not have a female lead that whines a lot about her situation or thinks she's better than others and dismisses them unless they're her love interest (can you tell I'm super fed up with that common stereotype!?)
Quite excited to start the next book which I will probably do tonight!