shelfunstable 's review for:

The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik

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I really enjoyed this book. For me, it retroactively made the first two books of the series better by bringing everything together thematically. I was lukewarm-to-disappointed by the first two books (Novik’s other books, Uprooted and Spinning Silver are two of my favorites), but this book makes it clear what she was doing with the whole trilogy and it’s lovely.

I was trying to decide whether I thought I would’ve liked it better if the trilogy had been condensed into one or two books, to get to this payoff sooner, and I think the groundwork laid in the first two books really is necessary to get here. I don’t think this book would’ve been as effective without all the time we spent toiling in the drudgery of the Scholomance.

So, I’m not sure I’m going to be recommending this trilogy to people, because it takes so long to get to the payoff, but I’m very glad I read it.