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A review by naideraid
Metal from Heaven by August Clarke
2.0
*Thank you to the publisher via Netgalley for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review*
To be brutally honest, up until the wild ending, I was really, really not vibing with this one. I think the premise was mostly interesting, but there were a few different aspects of the book that made this a difficult book to read.
For starters, the narrative style in this was... a choice. It's written in 1st-person POV (not my favorite, but I can work with it). The main character, Marney, has grown up around ichorite ever since she was forced to work in the ichorite manufacturing factories. This has given her a rather debilitating illness--called "luster-touched"--which causes her body to essentially start to shut down and her mind to hallucinate. It's a fascinating concept, but the way it translated into the narrative style was confusing. Because Marney hallucinates often (there's ichorite everywhere), the narration reflects this. While this could've been interesting enough in small doses, the fact that it happens so often really impacted my ability to completely follow (or enjoy) the story.
This leads into the fact that the way this was written didn't seem to allow me to feel much for the characters outside of Marney (and I didn't completely feel for Marney either). The writing felt very stilted at times and none of the characters really jumped off the page as a result.
Then, there's the fact that the world-building is delivered into GIANT chunks of text, often spanning pages. It often felt tedious and I didn't care enough in the world to want to know more.
Honestly, if it weren't for the wild, unique ending, this would've been a 1-star read. This has Gideon the Ninth as a comp title, but I'd honestly say that Gideon is less confusing than this turned out to be, even at its most confusing (at least, to me). So, overall, really didn't work for me and I'm honestly glad to be done reading it.
To be brutally honest, up until the wild ending, I was really, really not vibing with this one. I think the premise was mostly interesting, but there were a few different aspects of the book that made this a difficult book to read.
For starters, the narrative style in this was... a choice. It's written in 1st-person POV (not my favorite, but I can work with it). The main character, Marney, has grown up around ichorite ever since she was forced to work in the ichorite manufacturing factories. This has given her a rather debilitating illness--called "luster-touched"--which causes her body to essentially start to shut down and her mind to hallucinate. It's a fascinating concept, but the way it translated into the narrative style was confusing. Because Marney hallucinates often (there's ichorite everywhere), the narration reflects this. While this could've been interesting enough in small doses, the fact that it happens so often really impacted my ability to completely follow (or enjoy) the story.
This leads into the fact that the way this was written didn't seem to allow me to feel much for the characters outside of Marney (and I didn't completely feel for Marney either). The writing felt very stilted at times and none of the characters really jumped off the page as a result.
Then, there's the fact that the world-building is delivered into GIANT chunks of text, often spanning pages. It often felt tedious and I didn't care enough in the world to want to know more.
Honestly, if it weren't for the wild, unique ending, this would've been a 1-star read. This has Gideon the Ninth as a comp title, but I'd honestly say that Gideon is less confusing than this turned out to be, even at its most confusing (at least, to me). So, overall, really didn't work for me and I'm honestly glad to be done reading it.