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A review by guybrushtmp
Fathomfolk by Eliza Chan
Did not finish book. Stopped at 44%.
I unfortunately had to DNF this book as it has a scene where a character is trapped in a crowd crush incident which is one of my personal triggers. There was no trigger list going in for me to check this.
Overall, I really did appreciate the vivid depictions of the city and its intricacies. I do not think this author was trying to, as some reviews say, put a hodge podge of cultures together in a mash. I think it was more intended to be a heavily multi-cultural newer city, so this isn't London, Tokyo, Hong Kong with its long historical foundation but more like New York or Toronto. The issues discussed are very real.
However, as I have been reading up on story outlining recently I could really see the slowness in the story. The inciting incident basically happens at 40% and it feels like you are stuck in exposition/introduction waiting forever. Additionally, there were some very weird jumps between chapters. I had to check quite frequently if I had skipped pages because it felt like the scene cut off mid-thought. If this hadn't been an ARC I would have put this down earlier sadly because I was excited for this.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
Overall, I really did appreciate the vivid depictions of the city and its intricacies. I do not think this author was trying to, as some reviews say, put a hodge podge of cultures together in a mash. I think it was more intended to be a heavily multi-cultural newer city, so this isn't London, Tokyo, Hong Kong with its long historical foundation but more like New York or Toronto. The issues discussed are very real.
However, as I have been reading up on story outlining recently I could really see the slowness in the story. The inciting incident basically happens at 40% and it feels like you are stuck in exposition/introduction waiting forever. Additionally, there were some very weird jumps between chapters. I had to check quite frequently if I had skipped pages because it felt like the scene cut off mid-thought. If this hadn't been an ARC I would have put this down earlier sadly because I was excited for this.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Xenophobia
Graphic description of a crowd crush incident