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stepfarmer 's review for:
No Gods, No Monsters
by Cadwell Turnbull
adventurous
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
i wanted to like this book, i really did. i kept waiting for it to get over its growing pains but it never happened. firstly, i found the chapters in past tense to be much better written than the ones in present tense. the constant switching between passive and active voice (with no apparent rhyme or reason) plus the weird reluctance to use contractions really took me out of the story on numerous occasions. secondly, the prose is fine, but it's way too obvious that the author favors these like, bombshell, mic-drop quotable lines over letting the reader come to their own conclusions. i found myself irritated whenever the author spoiled a moment by trying to come up with some instagram-worthy line about a character's thoughts or feelings instead of letting me do the detective work over time. booooo.
the book has a huge cast of characters, which is to its detriment. not only did we not stay with any character for a long time, i found that most of the storylines did not intersect in any meaningful way. no individual character or arc was given enough attention, and the novel as a whole just feels muddled. it doesn't help that we jump from person to person, and from past to present over and over again. i was straight up forgetting who people were.
the worldbuilding is also just. bad. each new reveal of either the magic or the lore made the previous knowledge make less sense, and it had me constantly asking questions. in a bad way. i get that this is book one in a series, but i should finish book 1 with a solid start to understanding the magic/lore. i have none of that after finishing this one. it does a poor job of grounding the reader in the world, mostly due to the constant pov switching. a lot of storylines should've been cut or adapted differently imo.
i appreciate what this book is trying to do. there's a ton of poc characters and people's sexualities and gender identities are varied and casually revealed. it's great! i understand it's a metaphor! but it's just executed! so! poorly! this book should have had a wayyyy smaller cast and should honestly have been grounded in like one pov only.
unfortunately, this was just not good. i wanted it to be over like a hundred pages from the end.
the book has a huge cast of characters, which is to its detriment. not only did we not stay with any character for a long time, i found that most of the storylines did not intersect in any meaningful way. no individual character or arc was given enough attention, and the novel as a whole just feels muddled. it doesn't help that we jump from person to person, and from past to present over and over again. i was straight up forgetting who people were.
the worldbuilding is also just. bad. each new reveal of either the magic or the lore made the previous knowledge make less sense, and it had me constantly asking questions. in a bad way. i get that this is book one in a series, but i should finish book 1 with a solid start to understanding the magic/lore. i have none of that after finishing this one. it does a poor job of grounding the reader in the world, mostly due to the constant pov switching. a lot of storylines should've been cut or adapted differently imo.
i appreciate what this book is trying to do. there's a ton of poc characters and people's sexualities and gender identities are varied and casually revealed. it's great! i understand it's a metaphor! but it's just executed! so! poorly! this book should have had a wayyyy smaller cast and should honestly have been grounded in like one pov only.
unfortunately, this was just not good. i wanted it to be over like a hundred pages from the end.