widhxbr138 's review for:

The Phoenix King by Aparna Verma
3.0
This book took me ages to read. 

Things I enjoyed:
  • Some great sentences
  • The culture imbued in the story
  • The premise 

Things I found difficult:
  • There is a very jarring mix of old-fashioned settings with new-age technologies. The premise and basic setting makes me imagine a medieval fantasy world, and then suddenly there's holopods and reporters and all this technology that didn't feel naturally blended
  • A lot of politics in the first half. This one is my bad because the synopsis did warn me about that
  • Many scenes were written in a way that lacked impact, and were over before I even knew what was happening. Key scenes felt underwhelming. Examples:
    Ferma dying, Leo dying, Elena & Yassen finally hooking up, etc. literally everything big that happened was over within 1/2 a page
     

Overall an interesting premise and plot, but not quite executed in a way that I found engaging.