A review by gw7
Ship of Destiny by Robin Hobb

medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

It's a 5 star because, even among books i rate five stars, this one is up there. There just isn't really much I can fault about it. Plot: truthful, intriguing, good pace. Writing, excellent as always. Characters: so intricate and honest and believable they delivered the story line impeccably.

That being said, I MUCH preferred Mad Ship in this trilogy. Apart from the fact that everything was wrapped up at the end, this felt much more like a second than a third book and while it didn't exactly 'suffer from second book syndrome' it felt very much like, 'ok, all of these threads have been set up previously and now we have to carry them through to the books end.'

I get that it's not Hobb's style to do these larger than life endings specifically when it comes to impact on individual characters, but it very much felt like Amber and Wintrow were going to be a through line for THIS trilogy, even right up to the end it was leading as if there was going to be this one big final reveal about those two and what Amber had been talking about the entire time. However it is difficult for that to be a criticism because I was particularly disappointed with how their story wrapped up either. Not least because we're obviously going to have more of that story in the books to come.


I found so many of the ends of the characters so satisfying, and I've grown to very much enjoy the way that Hobb deals with things, I find it makes the lessons so much more applicable and I always learn so much from her writing that I readily apply to my own life.

Paragon with Althea at the end and the allegory with forgiveness and original sin, giving it up to HP etc.??????????????? to name one
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