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A review by ezrasupremacy
The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
5.0
4.5 ⭐️ rounded up
holy fucking shit, i can’t believe i managed to finish this. even more unbelievable is how good of a time i had with this.
to put things into perspective: i regularly talk about how little interest i have in fantasy. world building has always bored me to death. most of what i read is either contemporary, historical or literary fiction. very rarely do i actually give fantasy a chance, and when i do it is nearly exclusively urban, low fantasy.
i ended up giving this one a try because i have an interest in reading one of abercrombie’s other trilogies set in the same world, and because my best friend had a copy of it. thanks, viola. also thanks to tiktok user @greekchoir for assuring me this book didn’t have much world building (my mortal enemy), because without that reassurance i would’ve never even given this a try, and missed out big time.
one of my favourite elements in books is when you have a bunch of separate strands and elements that continually get closer to each other and then meet, something this book does in the most satisfying way. the characters (or character groups) that make up each of these strands are so fascinating and feel so real, i hated them and felt for them and looked forward to seeing more of them (well, most of them. fuck you jezal.) i liked that instead of having things explained to me about the world and how it worked, you were just kind of tossed into the middle of it and expected to just understand things, or otherwise find out alongside some of the characters. i also heard someone say this was political fantasy? i’m not sure if that’s the correct term (not because i disagree but because i literally don’t know what exactly that means) but i can see how it could be correct, and by God did i enjoy the political aspects of this. intrigues and deceit and treason and disloyalty and outright lies, social politics, all of that on one side, and on the other brutality and destruction, but also honour.
i’ve also been assured that this is a normal thought to have as a fantasy reader, so i will say it here: logen is my babygirl fr.
normally a book like this could’ve easily taken me more than a week, and yet despite being on a gruelling 48h work week right now, i ended up finishing it rather quickly, reading half of it in one sitting today on my day off. oops!
i don’t think i can make any interesting observations about this because it was my first book of this sort, so all i’m going to say is that i will get book two from my friend later today and start reading that immediately tomorrow at work. i cannot believe how much i’m enjoying this, how much it sucks you in and doesn’t let you go.
holy fucking shit, i can’t believe i managed to finish this. even more unbelievable is how good of a time i had with this.
to put things into perspective: i regularly talk about how little interest i have in fantasy. world building has always bored me to death. most of what i read is either contemporary, historical or literary fiction. very rarely do i actually give fantasy a chance, and when i do it is nearly exclusively urban, low fantasy.
i ended up giving this one a try because i have an interest in reading one of abercrombie’s other trilogies set in the same world, and because my best friend had a copy of it. thanks, viola. also thanks to tiktok user @greekchoir for assuring me this book didn’t have much world building (my mortal enemy), because without that reassurance i would’ve never even given this a try, and missed out big time.
one of my favourite elements in books is when you have a bunch of separate strands and elements that continually get closer to each other and then meet, something this book does in the most satisfying way. the characters (or character groups) that make up each of these strands are so fascinating and feel so real, i hated them and felt for them and looked forward to seeing more of them (well, most of them. fuck you jezal.) i liked that instead of having things explained to me about the world and how it worked, you were just kind of tossed into the middle of it and expected to just understand things, or otherwise find out alongside some of the characters. i also heard someone say this was political fantasy? i’m not sure if that’s the correct term (not because i disagree but because i literally don’t know what exactly that means) but i can see how it could be correct, and by God did i enjoy the political aspects of this. intrigues and deceit and treason and disloyalty and outright lies, social politics, all of that on one side, and on the other brutality and destruction, but also honour.
i’ve also been assured that this is a normal thought to have as a fantasy reader, so i will say it here: logen is my babygirl fr.
normally a book like this could’ve easily taken me more than a week, and yet despite being on a gruelling 48h work week right now, i ended up finishing it rather quickly, reading half of it in one sitting today on my day off. oops!
i don’t think i can make any interesting observations about this because it was my first book of this sort, so all i’m going to say is that i will get book two from my friend later today and start reading that immediately tomorrow at work. i cannot believe how much i’m enjoying this, how much it sucks you in and doesn’t let you go.