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A review by katemybreathaway
A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall
5.0
One of the best books I have read so far in 2024... Definite 5 out of 5 for me (maybe a tenth of a point off for the ending).
I'm not usually one for an epistolary style book, but something about how this was written kept my interest. You are basically following two different timelines, with the "present" timeline looking back onto the "past" one to try and unravel the mysterious "death" of two of the main characters. The pace is slow at times, and it honestly isn't until the second half of the book that I was finally able to start connecting the dots, but compared to a lot of other high-stakes fantasy novels, this was a breath of fresh air. The small moments where the characters interject random stories or anecdotes into their letters really reminds me of how humans actually communicate, and it helped develop the characters.
Both E and Henery are really interesting representations of neurodiverse characters, and their joy in finding someone they can connect with would make me smile throughout the novel. They are both just anxious scholars who want to learn and find happiness in the simple joys of nature.
My one main complaint is the ending... I went into this thinking it was a standalone novel (and in a lot of ways I think it could've STAYED that way and I would've been very happy with it). However as I got towards the end of the novel, I realized this was not the case, and in my opinion the ending felt quite sudden and sharp.
I'm not usually one for an epistolary style book, but something about how this was written kept my interest. You are basically following two different timelines, with the "present" timeline looking back onto the "past" one to try and unravel the mysterious "death" of two of the main characters. The pace is slow at times, and it honestly isn't until the second half of the book that I was finally able to start connecting the dots, but compared to a lot of other high-stakes fantasy novels, this was a breath of fresh air. The small moments where the characters interject random stories or anecdotes into their letters really reminds me of how humans actually communicate, and it helped develop the characters.
Both E and Henery are really interesting representations of neurodiverse characters, and their joy in finding someone they can connect with would make me smile throughout the novel. They are both just anxious scholars who want to learn and find happiness in the simple joys of nature.
My one main complaint is the ending... I went into this thinking it was a standalone novel (and in a lot of ways I think it could've STAYED that way and I would've been very happy with it). However as I got towards the end of the novel, I realized this was not the case, and in my opinion the ending felt quite sudden and sharp.