A review by trips
The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik

adventurous dark sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

 It just....wasn't a very good conclusion to this series.
The cliff hanger at the end of the 2nd book of course made readers race to get this book, only to be met with a lot of...info dumps that felt unnecessary with it being the finale book, traversing the world with a lot of El angst that was understandable but a bit much, and a conclusion that felt like "ehm...thats it?" in my opinion.

I don't have any problem with El's
foray into a kinda weird sapphic sex relationship with Liesl. I thought it was more amusing than anything because Liesl wanted her harem but in the end, El got more of one (lol).


What I didn't like is that I couldn't feel anything for Orion. I wanted to, what he had done to him was awful but it just wasn't written in a way where I truly felt like "wow this poor kid" instead it was like "well, he seems to be doing ok" (and I don't like that! I should've been crying after it was revealed what
Ophelia
did to him but it just didn't work for me. With that, the villain also fell flat, perhaps because they weren't there all that much, or because of everything written above.

Disappointing, I feel most sad for all the people who love El and Orion together as they got so little in this book! 
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