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A review by mycupoftealcsw
City of Storms by Kat Ross
4.0
Minor spoilers throughout.
This book has some really interesting and well thought out elements that I enjoyed, but also had a few plot points that felt incomplete and rushed.
I went into this book blind which I think was a good choice because this book is hard to really describe. It's part Blade Runner, part Divergent, part The Giver, part Third Reich, and part cold war Soviet Union but with swords and magic. And I'm sure I missed a few parts.
The things I liked about this book:
The world and magic elements: I really love all the elements of this world and the way it questions what it really means to be good and ethical. Other stories have done the "suppressing natural human emotions and desires for the greater good" thing but I haven't seen it addressed quite like this before. I love the idea of the Marks and the mystery behind them and why they flip. I also like the way ley lines take the place of a god in the spirituality of this world and they way they are incorporated into the magic system. The addition of cartomancy was also fun, especially since it came from a supposed "deviant".
The characters: all of the characters are rich and complex and who is bad and who is good is really a matter of perspective (except for those two creepy ass kids - they are definitely bad).
The physical descriptions of the characters: I really appreciate that we don't really know what a lot of the characters look like for most of the book because we only get one or two pieces of description from various characters. I thought this was an interesting choice because this is how it is in real life - most of us don't look in a mirror or at another person and see all their characteristics. We notice some things but not others, then other people notice different things, and so on.
Some things I thought needed to be more fleshed out:
The romance/love stories: both of them felt rushed and lacked adequate background to really make them make sense. I believed that they had affection for each other, but not why they had affection for each other. Malach and Nikola were more believable mainly because they have known each other longer, but Kasia and Alexei had only known each other for 4 days and one of those he was asleep. I would have liked more information or nuance to make these relationships feel more real.
More clarity on the world and history: this book is very dense and has a lot going on (which I enjoyed) but it also made it hard to keep track of at times. I think the information in the back of the book was helpful, but I would have liked more information in the text.
This book has some really interesting and well thought out elements that I enjoyed, but also had a few plot points that felt incomplete and rushed.
I went into this book blind which I think was a good choice because this book is hard to really describe. It's part Blade Runner, part Divergent, part The Giver, part Third Reich, and part cold war Soviet Union but with swords and magic. And I'm sure I missed a few parts.
The things I liked about this book:
The world and magic elements: I really love all the elements of this world and the way it questions what it really means to be good and ethical. Other stories have done the "suppressing natural human emotions and desires for the greater good" thing but I haven't seen it addressed quite like this before. I love the idea of the Marks and the mystery behind them and why they flip. I also like the way ley lines take the place of a god in the spirituality of this world and they way they are incorporated into the magic system. The addition of cartomancy was also fun, especially since it came from a supposed "deviant".
The characters: all of the characters are rich and complex and who is bad and who is good is really a matter of perspective (except for those two creepy ass kids - they are definitely bad).
The physical descriptions of the characters: I really appreciate that we don't really know what a lot of the characters look like for most of the book because we only get one or two pieces of description from various characters. I thought this was an interesting choice because this is how it is in real life - most of us don't look in a mirror or at another person and see all their characteristics. We notice some things but not others, then other people notice different things, and so on.
Some things I thought needed to be more fleshed out:
The romance/love stories: both of them felt rushed and lacked adequate background to really make them make sense. I believed that they had affection for each other, but not why they had affection for each other. Malach and Nikola were more believable mainly because they have known each other longer, but Kasia and Alexei had only known each other for 4 days and one of those he was asleep. I would have liked more information or nuance to make these relationships feel more real.
More clarity on the world and history: this book is very dense and has a lot going on (which I enjoyed) but it also made it hard to keep track of at times. I think the information in the back of the book was helpful, but I would have liked more information in the text.