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A review by barb4ry1
Seraphina's Lament by Sarah Chorn
4.0
Seraphina’s Lament breaks genres, conventions and taboos.
Set in a secondary world based on the Russian Revolution and the Holodomor, it gives a detailed look at a dying world.
A collectivist government controlled by an ex-revolutionary, Premier Eyad, used to have noble objectives. Things and people changed. Rulers inflict starvation, forced labour, and death on their subjects. Rampant famine forces people to commit acts of unspeakable cruelty and despair, including cannibalism. Magic leaks from the world.
Seraphina, a slave with a unique fire affinity, escapes her tormentors and joins revolutionaries. She wants Eyad dead. Her anger consumes her humanity. The same happens to other protagonists. As they head to Lord‘s Reach city to fight a corrupted government, they undergo significant changes. Some of them start to Become.
Seraphina’s Lament is a dark and unsettling book. Using elements of fantasy, horror, symbolism, magical realism and allegory, it dives into metaphysics and creation of gods.
Food, eating, and starvation represent life, death, guilt, and withheld love. Early in the book readers get to know Taub who undergoes a shocking metamorphosis. Chorn describes radical changes (mutations?) in such hallucinatory detail that I had to stop and reread chosen passages to picture them accurately. We can see protagnists’ bodily torment and share their disgust and terror when they first witness and experience it.
You’ll know early in the novel if her writing style works for you. It switches from poetic and allegorical to no-nonsense. I loved parts of it, but had to slowly reread others to see things. Some similes didn’t work for me. Others felt creative and imaginative. Chorn’s writing is dense and her story is so different from mainstream fantasy that I expect it to divide the audience.
Some will “get it”, while others will feel lost and helpless. I like allegories and Seraphina’s Lament may appeal to readers who enjoyed themes of unbecoming pictured in Dyachenko’s brilliant Vita Nostra.
Seraphina‘s Lament is a strong debut. It evokes feelings of futility, confusion, and helplessness, but I wouldn‘t call it nihilistic. It ends with a glimmer of hope.
It impressed me and I can't wait to see where it goes from here.
Set in a secondary world based on the Russian Revolution and the Holodomor, it gives a detailed look at a dying world.
A collectivist government controlled by an ex-revolutionary, Premier Eyad, used to have noble objectives. Things and people changed. Rulers inflict starvation, forced labour, and death on their subjects. Rampant famine forces people to commit acts of unspeakable cruelty and despair, including cannibalism. Magic leaks from the world.
Seraphina, a slave with a unique fire affinity, escapes her tormentors and joins revolutionaries. She wants Eyad dead. Her anger consumes her humanity. The same happens to other protagonists. As they head to Lord‘s Reach city to fight a corrupted government, they undergo significant changes. Some of them start to Become.
Seraphina’s Lament is a dark and unsettling book. Using elements of fantasy, horror, symbolism, magical realism and allegory, it dives into metaphysics and creation of gods.
Food, eating, and starvation represent life, death, guilt, and withheld love. Early in the book readers get to know Taub who undergoes a shocking metamorphosis. Chorn describes radical changes (mutations?) in such hallucinatory detail that I had to stop and reread chosen passages to picture them accurately. We can see protagnists’ bodily torment and share their disgust and terror when they first witness and experience it.
You’ll know early in the novel if her writing style works for you. It switches from poetic and allegorical to no-nonsense. I loved parts of it, but had to slowly reread others to see things. Some similes didn’t work for me. Others felt creative and imaginative. Chorn’s writing is dense and her story is so different from mainstream fantasy that I expect it to divide the audience.
Some will “get it”, while others will feel lost and helpless. I like allegories and Seraphina’s Lament may appeal to readers who enjoyed themes of unbecoming pictured in Dyachenko’s brilliant Vita Nostra.
Seraphina‘s Lament is a strong debut. It evokes feelings of futility, confusion, and helplessness, but I wouldn‘t call it nihilistic. It ends with a glimmer of hope.
It impressed me and I can't wait to see where it goes from here.