A review by sarrie
Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo

dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

 
TL;DR: While not my favorite in the Singing Hills Cycle I still think this is a valuable story in the series, giving us a closer look at the order and it's inner workings 


I'm a big fan of the Singing Hills cycle featuring Cleric Chih and their travels gathering stories. The Tiger Came Down the Mountain is one of my favorite novellas I've read in a long time, and the stories are so vibrant that I was super excited to get to Mammoths at the Gates. Perhaps that excitement was a little too much, my expectations too high for this installment as it is definitely the weakest I've read so far in the series. 

This is a story about grief in a way. But a removed kind of grief. Chih returns in time to witness the funeral rights of a teacher from the monastery and the family that want their remains returned. The conflict arises in the shared grief, but differing stories the two groups have of the deceased individual. We get snippets of history with Chih and their old friend who is the acting leader. We also see grief over the loss of childhood and the friendships that change and evolve as we age. All this was obvious but it simply didn't click for me. Perhaps a longer story would have carried these themes better? More of the story telling aspect (as we only got that briefly at the end)? 

The ending did little to help the story, feeling as if the author had written themselves in a corner. Magic was used as the 'get out of jail free card' solving everyone's problems. Simply not my favorite. I still enjoyed my time with the Cleric, I still loved seeing more of Singing Hills. I think perhaps go into this one prepared more for a quieter, slower, and darker version of these novellas and you'll have better expectations. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings