bri77a 's review for:

The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu

3.0

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 High brow epic fantasies do not need to be boring, but unfortunately the entire middle portion of this book was. The beginning was interesting though, and then it got better again near the end. I just think this book would have really benefited from some major cuts.

Also the "brotherly" friendship between

Kuni Garu and Mata Zyndu

, which is at the center of the entire plot, is entirely unconvincing. They have absolutely zero chemistry past the author constantly telling us they call each other brother. The novel continued to have problems with stilted, flat portrayals of relationships, but not all were like this. Some characters did have chemistry sometimes.

Also, for a book that seems to want to present itself as feminist, its depiction of women is just okay. There were some standout female characters, but other portrayals felt a bit misogynistic. Princess Kikomi's story in particular fell flat for me. She was introduced as a POV character only for her entire story to serve as just causing a conflict between two men (a conflict that was mediocrely handled and fell flat itself in my opinion,

and then didn't matter because one of them died and the other only reflected on the conflict briefly and moved on

)

before it unceremoniously ended.

Which, really, my bigger issue with her plot is less to do with misogyny and more to do with how unfulfilling and pointless it felt. I honestly don't see what the novel gained from including that plot at all. I think it could've been entirely cut from the novel and it wouldn't be missed. The only important thing it does is

kill a character,

which could've easily been done in a way that didn't waste the reader's time and emotional investment. 

Overall, this book still had quite a lot of good in it, and had some good bones, but it just got bogged down by itself.