A review by astralasher
The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd

1.75

Yes, this is an overly harsh review. I’m sorry to this author I really am, but a mediocre letdown is more upsetting to me than reading a “bad” book. I plan on coming back to write an in depth review when I have more spoons. But let’s just say this has every element of something I would love (very similar aspects that the raven cycle has and that is my favorite series of all time) but holy shit it’s such a nothing sandwich. Most of the action is told through flash backs in the form of side characters telling stories to the MC, I felt zero connection to any of the characters or any emotional involvement in the story. I was like 7 hours in before anything really happens at ALL. The conflict between a lot of the characters feels so weird and forced and genuinely makes no sense half of the time. One of the reviewers said the “romance” in this was amazing…, those characters have like 4 scenes together in a FOURTEEN HOUR BOOK. It’s told from the guys perspective too, but his insight is utterly useless and wasn’t needed other than for this CHEAP and PREDICTABLE plot twist. The only way this author did plot twists in this book was

revealing one character was actually someone else

the first time it happened I genuinely didn’t see it coming, but it didn’t /really/ matter much and wasn’t a bit shocking deal, so the second time i immediately saw it coming. Just a nothing burger. And that’s why I’m so mad. It had a great premise, the writing itself wasn’t bad by any means. And I totally love a low plot, low stakes, character heavy book. But it wasn’t that at all. The MC felt like a mechanism to tell these side characters stories, I would’ve rather read a  book about the past of the side characters! Just horrible horrible execution. Well I guess I ended up writing my long review now anyways lmao. So so heated when I finished this. I kept going out of spite. I kept thinking it would get better and interesting, it never did. Just read the raven cycle instead (it’s a lil more YA feeling but waaay more magical and interesting, also has a bit of an academic feel with a character obsessed with something their passionate about)