melomello 's review for:

Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett

5.0

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Loved this so much more than Mort. I thought the wizard subplot was nice and maybe even integral at first as a step back from Death to see what's happening in the world with Death suddenly "fired", making the world truly feel fleshed out. It does, however, become a bit of a slog to read through once Death's story started picking up, and I admittedly started skipping through the wizards' parts. Nonetheless, the dichotomy of a man who's not supposed to live anymore but is still living, and an entity who was not supposed to die but is now suddenly going to die, both using their strange predicament to rediscover their lot in life, was not lost on me.

Death's, and Bill Door's, journey was beautifully written. From the blades of grass, to the chicken, to the child, to the corn, to the

confrontation with the new Death

, to the Harvest, and finally to his talk

with Azrael

, we slowly get to see the full depth of Death's care and perhaps even Reverence for eacg and ever life he is responsible for. For a grand cosmic entity such as Death, it's so heartwarming to see his view on life. It's so profound it's shifted the way I think about Life and Death. Death the character may not be real, but one can only hope that Death is truly as kind and gentle.