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A review by thexwalrus
The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo
3.25
i loved the end of this book, but i don't know how i feel about the rest of it and i don't know why. i loved a lot of the characters. i loved the prose itself. but i never really felt compelled by the story? overall, it was "meh" until the greater theme of "fate can be changed" truly started coming into play.
maybe my issue was the historical setting - i don't know a lot about the spanish inquisition, and i never took spanish bc i was (as far as i'm aware) incapable of making the appropriate sounds to pronounce the words. as a result, i found myself constantly needing to reread parts because my brain got hung up on pronouncing a name in a few ways that seemed correct, and wondering if the word i had read actually meant what i had assumed it meant via context clues. i also kept forgetting "don" was a title and not a name, so for a while i was assuming all these important dudes were named don. (that was 100% on my own dingus brain, definitely not a fault of the book itself.)
this is wonderfully written and it's got a great final arc and wonderful characters, all things i've come to expect from leigh bardugo, but the setting made it a miss for me - at least for now. i think i may do some research on the spanish inquisition and the era this was set in so i can get a better overall picture before rereading it and seeing if that changes my rating. this book is going to be a five star read for a LOT of people! but for now, those people aren't me.
maybe my issue was the historical setting - i don't know a lot about the spanish inquisition, and i never took spanish bc i was (as far as i'm aware) incapable of making the appropriate sounds to pronounce the words. as a result, i found myself constantly needing to reread parts because my brain got hung up on pronouncing a name in a few ways that seemed correct, and wondering if the word i had read actually meant what i had assumed it meant via context clues. i also kept forgetting "don" was a title and not a name, so for a while i was assuming all these important dudes were named don. (that was 100% on my own dingus brain, definitely not a fault of the book itself.)
this is wonderfully written and it's got a great final arc and wonderful characters, all things i've come to expect from leigh bardugo, but the setting made it a miss for me - at least for now. i think i may do some research on the spanish inquisition and the era this was set in so i can get a better overall picture before rereading it and seeing if that changes my rating. this book is going to be a five star read for a LOT of people! but for now, those people aren't me.