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A review by thepastelnerd
Namesake by Adrienne Young
4.0
And here's Namesake, finally!!
Overall, quite a satisfying sequel to Fable, but it had a few problems that prevented me from giving it a full five stars, even though I very much enjoyed it. Here's a lengthy series of bullet points to dump all my concluding thoughts~
⚓ I mentioned in my review of Fable that I would have liked a bit more of "show, don't tell." I do think Namesake delivered in this regard since it described people's emotions through their subtle movements.
⚓ Although most characters continued to show they were well-developed, Holland was a little one-dimensional. I would have liked to spend more time with her to reveal her more sinister side and to delve into her relationship with Isolde a little more.
⚓ Speaking of Isolde, I appreciated that this book delved more into her backstory, since she was one of the biggest mysteries of Fable. I wish we could've learned more about her though since not all her mysteries were revealed, but I understand why the author didn't (or I can at least guess). Featuring Isolde more directly would have ruined some of the mystique and intense longing the characters still feel for her years after her death. And we did gain a greater appreciation of her relationship with Saint and with Fable...
⚓...which in turn helped us understand Saint and Fable's relationship with each other. I did appreciate them really connecting as father and daughter for the first time, though Saint isn't my favorite character. He still abandoned her and permanently scarred her, after all, and even though he did both in the name of love it was still really wrong.
⚓West is sadly not the best romantic interest I've ever read. While his relationship with Fable deepens, I didn't find his development very surprising or satisfying. He's a bit too violent for my tastes, and it wasn't super clear that he'd completely left that attitude behind by the conclusion.
⚓ I was pleasantly surprised by Clove's character, so I was dismayed when his role in the story ended so abruptly. Similarly, I was dismayed that we didn't get to see the Marigold's crew again till about halfway through the book, since they were a highlight of the first one for me.
⚓Speaking of which, I had this problem with the first book but didn't figure out how to explain it till this one. Both take the first third to first half of the book space up sticking Fable in bad situations before getting to the main conflict, which made both difficult to get into initially.
⚓ Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I felt that Fable should have been given more agency. She does the best she can to create her own fate and defend those around her, but much of the action in the book is dependent on the choices of other characters and how they twist her arm into doing what they want her to do. It also frustrated me that most of her ability to choose her own path was taken away by Saint and West, the two most important men in her life, repeatedly, while all the other female characters took a backseat since they were either not as significant, dead, or absent-for-most-of-Fable's-life-before-being-an-halfway-decent-antagonist.
This might seem like a lot of criticism, but I honestly really enjoyed Namesake and this duology over all, and I did think the ending was very satisfying for everybody, especially with how it brought the story full circle back to a (much nicer and less murdery and possibly future boyfriend of Willa) Koi and a Fable who's finally made peace with her time on Jeval and with her father. I look forward to giving the duology a well-deserved place on my bookshelf.
Overall, quite a satisfying sequel to Fable, but it had a few problems that prevented me from giving it a full five stars, even though I very much enjoyed it. Here's a lengthy series of bullet points to dump all my concluding thoughts~
⚓ I mentioned in my review of Fable that I would have liked a bit more of "show, don't tell." I do think Namesake delivered in this regard since it described people's emotions through their subtle movements.
⚓ Although most characters continued to show they were well-developed, Holland was a little one-dimensional. I would have liked to spend more time with her to reveal her more sinister side and to delve into her relationship with Isolde a little more.
⚓ Speaking of Isolde, I appreciated that this book delved more into her backstory, since she was one of the biggest mysteries of Fable. I wish we could've learned more about her though since not all her mysteries were revealed, but I understand why the author didn't (or I can at least guess). Featuring Isolde more directly would have ruined some of the mystique and intense longing the characters still feel for her years after her death. And we did gain a greater appreciation of her relationship with Saint and with Fable...
⚓...which in turn helped us understand Saint and Fable's relationship with each other. I did appreciate them really connecting as father and daughter for the first time, though Saint isn't my favorite character. He still abandoned her and permanently scarred her, after all, and even though he did both in the name of love it was still really wrong.
⚓West is sadly not the best romantic interest I've ever read. While his relationship with Fable deepens, I didn't find his development very surprising or satisfying. He's a bit too violent for my tastes, and it wasn't super clear that he'd completely left that attitude behind by the conclusion.
⚓ I was pleasantly surprised by Clove's character, so I was dismayed when his role in the story ended so abruptly. Similarly, I was dismayed that we didn't get to see the Marigold's crew again till about halfway through the book, since they were a highlight of the first one for me.
⚓Speaking of which, I had this problem with the first book but didn't figure out how to explain it till this one. Both take the first third to first half of the book space up sticking Fable in bad situations before getting to the main conflict, which made both difficult to get into initially.
⚓ Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I felt that Fable should have been given more agency. She does the best she can to create her own fate and defend those around her, but much of the action in the book is dependent on the choices of other characters and how they twist her arm into doing what they want her to do. It also frustrated me that most of her ability to choose her own path was taken away by Saint and West, the two most important men in her life, repeatedly, while all the other female characters took a backseat since they were either not as significant, dead, or absent-for-most-of-Fable's-life-before-being-an-halfway-decent-antagonist.
This might seem like a lot of criticism, but I honestly really enjoyed Namesake and this duology over all, and I did think the ending was very satisfying for everybody, especially with how it brought the story full circle back to a (much nicer and less murdery and possibly future boyfriend of Willa) Koi and a Fable who's finally made peace with her time on Jeval and with her father. I look forward to giving the duology a well-deserved place on my bookshelf.