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A review by ari_reading_
The Black Prism by Brent Weeks
3.0
Trigger Warnings: Sexism, Slut-shaming, Fatphobia, Slavery, Rape, Sexual assault, Cheating, Child abuse, Hallucinations, Blood depiction, Death of a child, Murder/ attempted murder, Genocide, Fire, Animal death
The Black Prism shows promise, as well as improvement from his first book in the Night Angel trilogy, my only other experience with Brent Week's books. However, I simply cannot overlook parts of the book, thus it is a 3.5
The start of the book is really slow and every word feels heavy on your eyes to read. The characters came off at the start as eh.
The worldbuilding and magic system were unique and interesting, albeit somewhat confusing.
You really need to push yourself to continue reading, the magic system gets a bit better explained as time goes on, and so does the book. The magic system was truly reminiscent of a Sanderson book.
The characters were just okay, the detail and twists to do with Gavin and his brother were shocking an unexpected, motivating me to continue reading the book.
I preferred Gavin over Kip as they were our two main narrators. Karris and Liv were cool and had the potential to be so great, but the writing ruined them (more below)
The casual sexism and fatphobia content present throughout this book is hard to overlook. Weeks portrays the female characters watered down in comparison to the male characters, even though they are badass.
We see Liv getting revenge on a boy who was using her, we get a badass scene and thus, her badass character potential is there. Yet while coming to terms with her assumption of her Dad's passing, Liv is mooning over boys. That's such a stereotype, people like to assume girls think about boys and love all the time which is false.
They are written off in some qualities as stereotypical women, worrying about their appearence and being insecure about it.
The constant descriptions of their appearences and their breasts and if said breasts were saggy were so uneccessary to the plot. There was no need to insult their appearence. Slut shaming is very prevalent and Kip even says after falling on his bacm, "he seemed to spend more time on his back than a W****"
Kip is a plus size character and the amount of times his size is brought up by hinself and others.
Overall, overlooking the sexism and fatphobia, this would still be a 3.5 due to such a slow start and some meh characters.
The worldbuilding/magic system as well as the subplot with Gavin and his brother were the best parts of the whole story.
Also the rape scene pissed me off, just because he was drunk was no excuse. And someone being drunk or under the influence of anything else does not mean you do not have to ask for consent.
The Black Prism shows promise, as well as improvement from his first book in the Night Angel trilogy, my only other experience with Brent Week's books. However, I simply cannot overlook parts of the book, thus it is a 3.5
The start of the book is really slow and every word feels heavy on your eyes to read. The characters came off at the start as eh.
The worldbuilding and magic system were unique and interesting, albeit somewhat confusing.
You really need to push yourself to continue reading, the magic system gets a bit better explained as time goes on, and so does the book. The magic system was truly reminiscent of a Sanderson book.
The characters were just okay, the detail and twists to do with Gavin and his brother were shocking an unexpected, motivating me to continue reading the book.
I preferred Gavin over Kip as they were our two main narrators. Karris and Liv were cool and had the potential to be so great, but the writing ruined them (more below)
The casual sexism and fatphobia content present throughout this book is hard to overlook. Weeks portrays the female characters watered down in comparison to the male characters, even though they are badass.
We see Liv getting revenge on a boy who was using her, we get a badass scene and thus, her badass character potential is there. Yet while coming to terms with her assumption of her Dad's passing, Liv is mooning over boys. That's such a stereotype, people like to assume girls think about boys and love all the time which is false.
They are written off in some qualities as stereotypical women, worrying about their appearence and being insecure about it.
The constant descriptions of their appearences and their breasts and if said breasts were saggy were so uneccessary to the plot. There was no need to insult their appearence. Slut shaming is very prevalent and Kip even says after falling on his bacm, "he seemed to spend more time on his back than a W****"
Kip is a plus size character and the amount of times his size is brought up by hinself and others.
Overall, overlooking the sexism and fatphobia, this would still be a 3.5 due to such a slow start and some meh characters.
The worldbuilding/magic system as well as the subplot with Gavin and his brother were the best parts of the whole story.
Also the rape scene pissed me off, just because he was drunk was no excuse. And someone being drunk or under the influence of anything else does not mean you do not have to ask for consent.