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bluepebble 's review for:
The Viridian Priestess
by Katrina Calandra
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
I had a lot of difficulty reading this book. It was a strange experience. For the first 10-15% of the book I struggled to both understand Ferren's character and her place in this world.
Then there is the world building, which wasn't exactly superficial but riddled with gaps, as if the author forgot to put most of it on the page even though it maybe exists in her head. I am unsure what the order of the priestesses is, what is their place on Cosima, how much power they have. But even more than that I didn't understand anything about Cosima, Firth or Viathan, and how they relate to each other. The book begins with the pending conjunction of the three worlds, but I couldn't figure out what is the importance of this event. Each of the worlds has one "magical" stone and they are related to the conjunction but I am not certain how and what is their purpose or power. The worlds are wary of each other but it is not fleshed out why. All this made it very difficult to understand the stakes in this book.
These problems persist throughout the book, but things do get better once Ferren leaves Cosima because the story starts to focus on new relationships that she builds, and that's really where the strength of the book lies. These relationships are written in a refreshing way. The characters act mature and sincere and there is an organic progression to both friendships and the romance, throughout the middle section of the book. There are also precarious relationships that are not exactly hostile or paint people as villains, but are a good representation of the tensions that exist. We are just never explained how did these tensions begin and what is the underlying history of these worlds.
Unfortunately in the last 20-30% of the book, even this aspect falls off a bit because the relationship building becomes very rushed. This need to rush all the relationships (romantic and friendships), further along than they would organically be bacuse the story is ending, also comes at the cost of stunting character development.
Instead of using a steady pace to flesh out 99's character and the growing strength of their connection, they just sort of fall into love. 99 is still a character I don't really understand, and Ferren's abilities are used a crutch to move things along despite that.She has a kind of mind reading ability that she uses to connect with 99 and pluck things from his thoughts. He initially invites her in, but subsequent instances are murkier on consent, which I did not enjoy. In any case, it felt like instead of putting in the work to build their connection at some point any doubt or fear or concern becomes simply mitigated by the implicit understanding provider by their mind meld.
Finally, the implications of Ferren using her abilities do not seem very thought out. I don't appreciate when authors start using these abilities as a stand in for building trust without true consideration how intrusive and violating these abilities could be in the real world, simply accepting that "true love/no secrets" is enough justification for the other person to be completely comfortable with the intrusion.
Then there is the world building, which wasn't exactly superficial but riddled with gaps, as if the author forgot to put most of it on the page even though it maybe exists in her head. I am unsure what the order of the priestesses is, what is their place on Cosima, how much power they have. But even more than that I didn't understand anything about Cosima, Firth or Viathan, and how they relate to each other. The book begins with the pending conjunction of the three worlds, but I couldn't figure out what is the importance of this event. Each of the worlds has one "magical" stone and they are related to the conjunction but I am not certain how and what is their purpose or power. The worlds are wary of each other but it is not fleshed out why. All this made it very difficult to understand the stakes in this book.
These problems persist throughout the book, but things do get better once Ferren leaves Cosima because the story starts to focus on new relationships that she builds, and that's really where the strength of the book lies. These relationships are written in a refreshing way. The characters act mature and sincere and there is an organic progression to both friendships and the romance, throughout the middle section of the book. There are also precarious relationships that are not exactly hostile or paint people as villains, but are a good representation of the tensions that exist. We are just never explained how did these tensions begin and what is the underlying history of these worlds.
Unfortunately in the last 20-30% of the book, even this aspect falls off a bit because the relationship building becomes very rushed. This need to rush all the relationships (romantic and friendships), further along than they would organically be bacuse the story is ending, also comes at the cost of stunting character development.
Instead of using a steady pace to flesh out 99's character and the growing strength of their connection, they just sort of fall into love. 99 is still a character I don't really understand, and Ferren's abilities are used a crutch to move things along despite that.
Finally, the implications of Ferren using her abilities do not seem very thought out. I don't appreciate when authors start using these abilities as a stand in for building trust without true consideration how intrusive and violating these abilities could be in the real world, simply accepting that "true love/no secrets" is enough justification for the other person to be completely comfortable with the intrusion.