A review by bujo_bellel
The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced
  • 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? Yes

3.0

Okay so I was really expecting this book to be like fully mind-blowing and stuff but tbh it didn't really  live up to that expectation. First of, the thing was Liesel was so random, like they didn't even know each other that well and boom they have a thing?? Like? I'm not sure if I missed out something between them in the last books (to be fair I took a long break in between the last book and this one) but I don't actually remember seeing much chemistry between them and just friendship of sorts? And like why was she in a sort of relationship with Liesel when she had Orion and she still had that kind of relationship after knowing Orion was alive like huhh??? The reveal that
El was actually really the one bringing down the enclaves because she had the ability to kill the mawmouths which were actually the foundations for the enclaves
was quite shocking but like it didn't really feel like much after reading the reveals in the past 2 books? The characters didn't really grow that much and the relationship between El and Orion was kind of weird
like the reveal that Orion was literally a mawmouth and that his mother, the next Domina of New York is literally a maleficer because she made him her Mal killing machine that can also extract the mana from them was part of it but still
made this book like kind of not as high stakes? Like the relationship between El and Orion made the ending of the last book so impactful and now in this book it was barely there. The previous 2 books were very high stakes and fast paced but this one is much slower and they're also out of The Scholomance which was part of the reason why the previous books were so engaging. I really loved El's character and I still like her in this book although I missed her usual snarkiness and I guess she really grew to be a bigger person but I miss her insults that are like the funniest comparisons ever but we didn't get to see much of that since El was nicer in this book. Like I really liked being in her head in the past books precisely because of the way she thinks and it wasn't as present in this book. Also I didn't like that El's friends were barely present in this book.. like they were there but for didn't add as much as they used to. I'm also kind of in a book hangover after Iron Flame and this made it worse honestly. Had really high hopes because I loved the other books :(
Expand filter menu Content Warnings