Review by morallyblack - The Golden Raven

morallyblack 's review for:

The Golden Raven by Nora Sakavic

3.5

emotional tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

The Golden Raven is the continuation of the second half of “All for the Game” with the focus shifted away from The Foxhole Court in favor of The Sunshine Court, the home of the USC Trojans. This book picks up where “The Sunshine Court” left off: With Jean Morau slowly finding his footing in a new home, entering his Golden era and step by step return to being an actual human.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Jean. I love his no nonsense, no filter, straight up facts kind of communicating (might be the neurospiciness, we’ll never know), love the humour it brings with it, but I have to say that this book is almost 500 pages long. I adore character building, but for 500 pages, there’s gotta be more. And yes, there is plot, but it’s thrown at you, rather than introduced to you.

While I struggled a little bit with the first book and blamed that on me missing the Foxhole Court, I did struggle with this one, too, and I already liked the characters, but the whole book felt like I was waiting for something to happen and when it did, I didn’t really care, because it was in such a jumbly-tumbly way, that there was no real connection to it.

I still don’t understand half of the conflicts taking place in the book and trust me, when I claim to have really, really good pattern recognition and I pick up on details in books very easily. But it somehow feels like it’s a lesser version of the first half of AFTG.

I will, for sure, pick up the next book once it drops, but until then I’ll sit here with a truly unsatisfied “Huh?” on my face. And similar to the books’ characters, I’d prefer something else sitting on my face. Cheerio.

Content Warnings