A review by eggcatsreads
Tideborn by Eliza Chan

2.25

With the beautiful storytelling and political climate in Fathomfolk, I was really excited to see how this duology would end in Tideborn and unfortunately, I was left extremely underwhelmed. In many ways I felt like this book was written as if it was intended to be the second book in a trilogy, and not a duology, as it focused on small inconsequential details that did not go anywhere, and included a journey that felt rushed to complete at the end. Up until the about 80% mark the book meanders throughout its storytelling, and then suddenly everything is wrapped up in a weird nice little bow as everything resolves itself because the author remembered this book was the ending and not the middle. 

I also noticed how inconsistent the characterization was throughout. For instance, Kai’s mother, Jiang-Li, was constantly fluctuating on her treatment of Mira. She would treat her poorly for not being “pure folk” and for marrying her son and being the cause of his death - but then, the next chapter she would be silently supportive or openly friendly with her. I kept mixing up this character with someone else as I was reading because her characterization was so inconsistent that I kept thinking “no, surely this is some other dragon matriarch” because that made more sense than her character simply…doing whatever was needed to move the plot forward. In the same way, Cordelia randomly decided to take “revenge” on Mira randomly throughout the book, but her reasoning was flimsy at best, and she would be doing this while also being friendly and helpful to her. It made absolutely no sense. 

I also felt like the author focused too much on keeping the same POV characters from Fathomfolk, as Cordeilia’s entire subplot with her daughter and drug-smuggling had no point to it. Instead, we have her son Gede having - apparently - a TON of growth and characterization that we never see happen! It’s just there! He is the character I found the most interesting, and we never get any chapters focused on him, or his thoughts. 

Nami’s entire plot also did not go anywhere at all. To avoid too many spoilers, her character arc was clumsily done and Firth only showed up to force her hand into actually developing as a character. However, the journey that she goes on, that is so important for her to do? Meaningless. Absolutely nothing comes from it, and her entire goal fails entirely. She’s supposed to find the other titan and try to keep it from destroying Tiankawi - but when she fails at doing this spectacularly, she acts like Jiang-Li’s plan to use her pearl to destroy the titan is the worst possible thing that could happen. And I’m reading this like, well? Okay, then? What’s your plan, because otherwise only one of you isn’t killing everyone in the city, and it’s not you! 

This book was too ambitious, had too many unconnected plots, and doesn’t solve any of them - but rather, just…ends. The book ends and everything is “resolved” because this is supposed to be the ending to a duology, and so this story has to be resolved. I was left extremely disappointed, because - while I did have some issues with Fathomfolk, I could see the potential and was hoping this ending would deliver. Instead, it meandered, focused on unimportant characters and plots, and then suddenly ended without warning. 

Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit for providing this e-ARC.