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A review by kayla_moerman
To Cage a God by Elizabeth May
Did not finish book. Stopped at 17%.
I did not like the writing style one bit. It had passages of text where it would give amazing description and detail to ‘show’ the characters situations and perspectives and the way their experiences have shaped them but then immediately undercut itself by ‘telling’ us exactly the same thing.
I'm not against a book telling us details that could else be inferred other ways, and overall from what I gathered of the themes bring explored, I feel optimistic that it would be quite nuanced and thoughtful in the concepts and topics introduce at the beginning. However I do fret for the execution as it felt like the author was almost working too hard to try and get her point across and didn't get a good balance between the showing and telling aspect of the book.
Saying that, the magic system sounded really cool and the upfront consequences and mechanisms the characters used to control the Gods grafted to their bones were interesting, though I wouldn't necessarily call it original. I did like the characters themselves a lot though because they were both very complex and immediately fleshed out by their inner dialogue and the banter between them. Once again, however, I felt it was overwritten in that despite this amazing display of showing the characters interact it would always tell us how they interacted too.
This is just a personal gripe for me as I'm very much a sucker for specific writing styles that have a certain flow to them. I don’t think the book was bad, what I read of it sounded good! But I just couldn't read it without losing concentration because I need slightly more vague writing to stay attentive.
I'm not against a book telling us details that could else be inferred other ways, and overall from what I gathered of the themes bring explored, I feel optimistic that it would be quite nuanced and thoughtful in the concepts and topics introduce at the beginning. However I do fret for the execution as it felt like the author was almost working too hard to try and get her point across and didn't get a good balance between the showing and telling aspect of the book.
Saying that, the magic system sounded really cool and the upfront consequences and mechanisms the characters used to control the Gods grafted to their bones were interesting, though I wouldn't necessarily call it original. I did like the characters themselves a lot though because they were both very complex and immediately fleshed out by their inner dialogue and the banter between them. Once again, however, I felt it was overwritten in that despite this amazing display of showing the characters interact it would always tell us how they interacted too.
This is just a personal gripe for me as I'm very much a sucker for specific writing styles that have a certain flow to them. I don’t think the book was bad, what I read of it sounded good! But I just couldn't read it without losing concentration because I need slightly more vague writing to stay attentive.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Self harm, Alcoholism, and Alcohol