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A review by nikkisbooknook
The Serpent Called Mercy by Roanne Lau
4.0
I'm loving the surge of non-western based fantasy books lately. This book is steeped in Malaysian culture and the depictions are vibrant and refreshing. The characters are also flawed and fractured and make for interesting reading - they are not your average cookie cutter MC's.
Our story is chock full of love between best friends (there is zero spice), rebellion, rising up against oppression and navigating a world where corruption is rife. Our MC's are the complete opposite of the usual MC's - they are poor, poverty stricken and on the edge of desperation. No secret powers, hidden ties to royalty or Fae for them. They need to scrap their way out of everything.
Lythlet is a great FMC. She is strong, tough, determined and has overcome abuse by her former "masters". She would do anything for her bestie Desil, even sell their souls to a fight-master. I really empathised with Lythlet - she's plain, ordinary and unremarkable in many ways but she is a whizz at organisation, which has been exploited by others in the past. She does get lost along the way, making her all the more believable as a character. She gets side-tracked and consumed by petty things before she finally gets back on to her true path.
Desil and his medical debt are at the core of every decision that Lythlet makes and there are some really emotional scenes between them as the storyline develops. There are some very strong real-world parallels depicted in the story and it blended into the fantasy world seamlessly.
I'm a bit peeved at the lack of world building outside the MC's direct environment. I wanted to know more about the sub-blest, the workings of the fights/arenas/match masters. There were a few scenes of info-dumping and some of the longer monologues could have been edited down a bit but otherwise I really enjoyed both the storyline and the development of the characters.
This is a friendship/platonic love coded fantasy and I'm here for more!
Our story is chock full of love between best friends (there is zero spice), rebellion, rising up against oppression and navigating a world where corruption is rife. Our MC's are the complete opposite of the usual MC's - they are poor, poverty stricken and on the edge of desperation. No secret powers, hidden ties to royalty or Fae for them. They need to scrap their way out of everything.
Lythlet is a great FMC. She is strong, tough, determined and has overcome abuse by her former "masters". She would do anything for her bestie Desil, even sell their souls to a fight-master. I really empathised with Lythlet - she's plain, ordinary and unremarkable in many ways but she is a whizz at organisation, which has been exploited by others in the past. She does get lost along the way, making her all the more believable as a character. She gets side-tracked and consumed by petty things before she finally gets back on to her true path.
Desil and his medical debt are at the core of every decision that Lythlet makes and there are some really emotional scenes between them as the storyline develops. There are some very strong real-world parallels depicted in the story and it blended into the fantasy world seamlessly.
I'm a bit peeved at the lack of world building outside the MC's direct environment. I wanted to know more about the sub-blest, the workings of the fights/arenas/match masters. There were a few scenes of info-dumping and some of the longer monologues could have been edited down a bit but otherwise I really enjoyed both the storyline and the development of the characters.
This is a friendship/platonic love coded fantasy and I'm here for more!