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A review by skywhales
Saint Death's Daughter by C.S.E. Cooney
adventurous
dark
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
almost got a 5 from me but if carter can still be occupying my brain today but couldn't make it to a perfect 5 than this can't either, sorry </3
but good god the WORLDBUILDING. FUCK. we've got a pantheon of unique gods, an intricately designed magic system and possibly the most interesting take on necromancy i've seen to this day, a calendar and dates system, multiple cultures and languages and Rituals and Holidays and ohhhhhmygod i wish EVERY book had this much going on in its world. made my own little glossary of terms i thought i'd need to keep track of (learned from baru) but didn't end up needing it all that much and that was nice. quadic being in iambic pentameter was incredibly delightful. i actually wish we'd learned more about the different kinds of magic. like i know each one is tied to a god but if the parliament of rooks has 24 wizards with different abilities in it which gods have domain over multiple abilities? which goes with which? especially if they usually don't have necromancers/fire wizards. so 10 gods and 24 strains of magic. also are the parliament of rooks' bird patterns literally fused to their skin? unrelated. god i love a richly detailed world.
the prose was at times really good, at times a tad grating. there were some things that probably could have done with less description. and also--and i am aware that in this instance this is solely personal preference--i'm usually not a fan of "quirky" humor and there were certain things that just made me roll my eyes or cringe. loved most of the dark humor associated with the stones and their fucked up bloody legacy though. exactly my kind of thing. something that i don't know was intentional or not was just how little time was spent on certain things that to me felt like Big Revelations but to lanie i guess were just. whatever? or she already knew but didn't state?mostly i am talking about goody being quick fantastic stones and canon lir being errolirrolin <- had to go back to the book to spell that name. to me those were HUH. OH MY GOD moments but maybe we were expected to have figured them out??? wish we coulda sat with those for a minute. i mean they made Sense but still.
it took me a while to come around on most of the characters--longer than some books would have, but then in other books i may never have come around at all so really it all balances out i suppose. lanie was cute--there was an air of Super Special Unique Awesomeness about her that annoyed me at first but i love how she loves her creations. mak was okay, not like an all time favorite or someone i could see myself getting mentally ill about but he was a solid, well-rounded and likable character. datu was fun. i like morbid children. havoc and the gyrgardu/gyrlady duo whose names i have sadly Already Forgotten were...fine. havoc was the source of a lot of the quirky humor that annoyed me (i like her name though), and while i liked the other two more they were all introduced too late in the story for me to really feel completely attached to them. the story of the gyrgardu/gyrlady duo forming their bond was very sweet though. goody was one of my favorite characters and i definitely think her relationship with lanie was the most powerful in the book for me. nita was...conflicting. i just strongly dislike the idea of any character being quintessentially "born bad" and the story seemed insistent on telling me that that's what nita was like. i also strongly disliked the back cover's use of "psychotic" to refer to her when that's a real mental illness that doesn't automatically equate to an evil or dangerous person. i would have appreciated her role in the story a lot more if she wasn't portrayed as unrepentantly evil even as a child and rather as someone working to live up to the legacy of the stoneses and gradually losing more and more of her humanity along the way, until her hubristic downfall. also i think i would have really liked unnatural stones if he was. an actual character. the blackbird bride was a pretty good villain even if i wish i could've seen more of her motivation. i mean i know her Obvious motivation but i want to know more about her feelings. the feelings of the rest of the parliament. yknow. also unless i misread something she married her cousin which EWWWWW. i fucking hate reading about incest no matter the justification. it automatically makes my reading experience at least 15% more unpleasant. sorry if that makes me a prude or whatever. i don't care.
the romance was a little saccharine at times and not entirely my favorite thing but at least canon lir was a pretty interesting character and the twist at the end was sufficiently OH SHIT! i just wish there had been more substance to it than "childhood friends endlessly fawning over each other." btw this book seems to (but to be fair this is conjecture) operate on an "everyone is bi" mindset, or at least all of the main characters are (probably), which isn't my faaaavorite kind of lgbt+ fantasy world? just because i think there should also be a place for people who have fought to have their identity recognized as not having anything to do with men/women. but, like, it's leagues better than an "everyone is straight except for a few weirdos" world. and nita might have been straight. but that doesn't really mean anything.
the climax of this book was So Stinking Cool. the kinda thing that makes the thirteen year old boy part of me go a little bit apeshit. i love awesome climaxes i love awesome worldbuilding that was soooooo fucking epic.
of all the books i've read this would be the one i'd recommend most decisively to locked tomb fans. it's got the necromancy yeah but it's also got the casual genderfuckery and the deep intense bond between a warrior/caster duo that isn't necessarily romantic. and cringy dialogue. sorry locked tomb fans.
will be reading the sequel when it comes out but after i've made a substantial dent in my tbr because i need time to let the whole thing sink into my head and i kinda rushed through this one because i'm going back to boston in a few weeks and need to limit the amount of books i bring.
but good god the WORLDBUILDING. FUCK. we've got a pantheon of unique gods, an intricately designed magic system and possibly the most interesting take on necromancy i've seen to this day, a calendar and dates system, multiple cultures and languages and Rituals and Holidays and ohhhhhmygod i wish EVERY book had this much going on in its world. made my own little glossary of terms i thought i'd need to keep track of (learned from baru) but didn't end up needing it all that much and that was nice. quadic being in iambic pentameter was incredibly delightful. i actually wish we'd learned more about the different kinds of magic. like i know each one is tied to a god but if the parliament of rooks has 24 wizards with different abilities in it which gods have domain over multiple abilities? which goes with which? especially if they usually don't have necromancers/fire wizards. so 10 gods and 24 strains of magic. also are the parliament of rooks' bird patterns literally fused to their skin? unrelated. god i love a richly detailed world.
the prose was at times really good, at times a tad grating. there were some things that probably could have done with less description. and also--and i am aware that in this instance this is solely personal preference--i'm usually not a fan of "quirky" humor and there were certain things that just made me roll my eyes or cringe. loved most of the dark humor associated with the stones and their fucked up bloody legacy though. exactly my kind of thing. something that i don't know was intentional or not was just how little time was spent on certain things that to me felt like Big Revelations but to lanie i guess were just. whatever? or she already knew but didn't state?
it took me a while to come around on most of the characters--longer than some books would have, but then in other books i may never have come around at all so really it all balances out i suppose. lanie was cute--there was an air of Super Special Unique Awesomeness about her that annoyed me at first but i love how she loves her creations. mak was okay, not like an all time favorite or someone i could see myself getting mentally ill about but he was a solid, well-rounded and likable character. datu was fun. i like morbid children. havoc and the gyrgardu/gyrlady duo whose names i have sadly Already Forgotten were...fine. havoc was the source of a lot of the quirky humor that annoyed me (i like her name though), and while i liked the other two more they were all introduced too late in the story for me to really feel completely attached to them. the story of the gyrgardu/gyrlady duo forming their bond was very sweet though. goody was one of my favorite characters and i definitely think her relationship with lanie was the most powerful in the book for me. nita was...conflicting. i just strongly dislike the idea of any character being quintessentially "born bad" and the story seemed insistent on telling me that that's what nita was like. i also strongly disliked the back cover's use of "psychotic" to refer to her when that's a real mental illness that doesn't automatically equate to an evil or dangerous person. i would have appreciated her role in the story a lot more if she wasn't portrayed as unrepentantly evil even as a child and rather as someone working to live up to the legacy of the stoneses and gradually losing more and more of her humanity along the way, until her hubristic downfall. also i think i would have really liked unnatural stones if he was. an actual character. the blackbird bride was a pretty good villain even if i wish i could've seen more of her motivation. i mean i know her Obvious motivation but i want to know more about her feelings. the feelings of the rest of the parliament. yknow. also unless i misread something she married her cousin which EWWWWW. i fucking hate reading about incest no matter the justification. it automatically makes my reading experience at least 15% more unpleasant. sorry if that makes me a prude or whatever. i don't care.
the romance was a little saccharine at times and not entirely my favorite thing but at least canon lir was a pretty interesting character and the twist at the end was sufficiently OH SHIT! i just wish there had been more substance to it than "childhood friends endlessly fawning over each other." btw this book seems to (but to be fair this is conjecture) operate on an "everyone is bi" mindset, or at least all of the main characters are (probably), which isn't my faaaavorite kind of lgbt+ fantasy world? just because i think there should also be a place for people who have fought to have their identity recognized as not having anything to do with men/women. but, like, it's leagues better than an "everyone is straight except for a few weirdos" world. and nita might have been straight. but that doesn't really mean anything.
the climax of this book was So Stinking Cool. the kinda thing that makes the thirteen year old boy part of me go a little bit apeshit. i love awesome climaxes i love awesome worldbuilding that was soooooo fucking epic.
of all the books i've read this would be the one i'd recommend most decisively to locked tomb fans. it's got the necromancy yeah but it's also got the casual genderfuckery and the deep intense bond between a warrior/caster duo that isn't necessarily romantic. and cringy dialogue. sorry locked tomb fans.
will be reading the sequel when it comes out but after i've made a substantial dent in my tbr because i need time to let the whole thing sink into my head and i kinda rushed through this one because i'm going back to boston in a few weeks and need to limit the amount of books i bring.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Murder, and Death
Moderate: Blood and Child abuse
Minor: Incest