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midnightbagel 's review for:
The Invasion of the Tearling
by Erika Johansen
*2.5 stars*
I have to be honest, I was very disappointed by this book. I thought the book was a perfectly serviceable first book for a fantasy series. It wasn't anything remarkable but it did enough to get me intrigued about the world, attached to our main set of characters, and hopeful that the second book would take the set-up to new places. Which, it did, but it also very much didn't.
My biggest issue with the first book was that it felt a bit basic, like it took the tried-and-true fantasy tropes and executed them decently, but didn't do anything new with them. It continued to do that again here, but with a ~twist~. Unfortunately, that twist just became more of the same, except instead of with fantasy it did it with dystopian / near future timelines. Everything about the world felt so bland, cliche, and boring, down to the characters who occupied it. It takes a lot for me to actually dislike a protagonist, generally I fall somewhere in the "neutral" range, but I disliked Lily. She could have been so much more interesting but instead she was, like everything else about this part of the novel, something I had seen before and didn't care to see again. When the full picture was revealed in the third act, I will admit, I thought that was neat, but not neat enough to make up for the slog that occurred beforehand. I truly had no investment in that side of the story, and while I’m sure its importance is illuminated in the third book, in this insular story it didn’t do it for me.
Backstory is important, and oftentimes gives light and depth to the present narrative. But, for all the time spent with Lily, and for all the backstory set up, it didn't make me care for the present narrative anymore, and it felt like a glorified info-dump that the author got too carried away with. It felt like when I make a DnD character, an npc, and I make a whole backstory that I think is really cool and important, but then I have to realize that ultimately it does nothing for the campaign at hand. It wasn't a disaster, just terribly uninteresting. Again, I’m sure this is all a grand set-up for the finale, but if it doesn’t work in the singular narrative it’s contained in, it working in the grander one doesn’t make up for that.
Everything felt trite, and I'm also at odds with what the book seems to be saying through Lily's story. It seems like it's trying to be feminist, but it falls so flat, and ends up being flimsy and one dimensional. One of the "bad" things about this future is the fact that women's worth is derived from their ability to have children. However, by the end Lily falls under what I'll call Sarah Connor Syndrome. Like Sarah Connor in the first Terminator film,
Additionally, on a similar note, I don't understand what the novel is trying to say politically. It paints us the most cliche version of an authoritarian America, and then proposes this strange Luddite christ-figure as the solution with no real political philosophy besides "a better world"? I couldn't stand William Tear, I thought he was just the worst, but I think the novel wants us to like him. Perhaps not worship him like Lily, but at least believe in his vision, and believe in him.
As a result of the book lacing itself to this new plot, the overarching plot suffered as well. The pacing is namely what I felt was lacking here. Things were happening, but it felt like they were only happening to service the B Plot (Lily), when it should have been the other way around. There were still parts that I enjoyed, and all of the parts I enjoyed of the whole novel definitely came from Kelsea's story, but it still felt weighed down by Lily's. Even though I came into this book with good feelings towards these characters, I ended up losing those good feelings, and not caring about much except for Kelsea.
Kelsea was, and will continue to be in my memories of this series--as I do not plan on reading the concluding novel--the shining light for me. I genuinely really enjoy her as a protagonist, in the way of I find her very interesting, and I personally just like her very much. I think she has shown prominent growth throughout these two books, and I think it's been done in a believable and thoughtful way. She's complex and feels real as a result. Her struggles are also complex, and her dealings with rage are some of my favorite moments. I will probably look up a summary of how her story ends, just because no matter how I feel about the rest of it, Kelsea has a hold of me,
I was just expecting so much more from this, and it did not deliver for me. I didn't completely hate my time with it, but it was a struggle to finish by the end. There were moments I enjoyed, particularly the ones revolving around Kelsea and her inner monologue, but there was a lot that I just simply didn't care for. I think there are a lot of cool ideas floating around with this series, and it has a main character that I would rank highly among others I've read. However, the execution of these ideas fell so flat for me. It ended up feeling very run of the mill in many different ways, and while it was fine in the first one--I almost welcomed it--here it was stale.
I have to be honest, I was very disappointed by this book. I thought the book was a perfectly serviceable first book for a fantasy series. It wasn't anything remarkable but it did enough to get me intrigued about the world, attached to our main set of characters, and hopeful that the second book would take the set-up to new places. Which, it did, but it also very much didn't.
My biggest issue with the first book was that it felt a bit basic, like it took the tried-and-true fantasy tropes and executed them decently, but didn't do anything new with them. It continued to do that again here, but with a ~twist~. Unfortunately, that twist just became more of the same, except instead of with fantasy it did it with dystopian / near future timelines. Everything about the world felt so bland, cliche, and boring, down to the characters who occupied it. It takes a lot for me to actually dislike a protagonist, generally I fall somewhere in the "neutral" range, but I disliked Lily. She could have been so much more interesting but instead she was, like everything else about this part of the novel, something I had seen before and didn't care to see again. When the full picture was revealed in the third act, I will admit, I thought that was neat, but not neat enough to make up for the slog that occurred beforehand. I truly had no investment in that side of the story, and while I’m sure its importance is illuminated in the third book, in this insular story it didn’t do it for me.
Backstory is important, and oftentimes gives light and depth to the present narrative. But, for all the time spent with Lily, and for all the backstory set up, it didn't make me care for the present narrative anymore, and it felt like a glorified info-dump that the author got too carried away with. It felt like when I make a DnD character, an npc, and I make a whole backstory that I think is really cool and important, but then I have to realize that ultimately it does nothing for the campaign at hand. It wasn't a disaster, just terribly uninteresting. Again, I’m sure this is all a grand set-up for the finale, but if it doesn’t work in the singular narrative it’s contained in, it working in the grander one doesn’t make up for that.
Everything felt trite, and I'm also at odds with what the book seems to be saying through Lily's story. It seems like it's trying to be feminist, but it falls so flat, and ends up being flimsy and one dimensional. One of the "bad" things about this future is the fact that women's worth is derived from their ability to have children. However, by the end Lily falls under what I'll call Sarah Connor Syndrome. Like Sarah Connor in the first Terminator film,
Spoiler
her entire worth as a character comes down to the fact that in the future she will birth a very important man. Regardless of whatever arc she had to get to this point, the only reason she is important to the grander narrative at work is because of the male child she conceives.Additionally, on a similar note, I don't understand what the novel is trying to say politically. It paints us the most cliche version of an authoritarian America, and then proposes this strange Luddite christ-figure as the solution with no real political philosophy besides "a better world"? I couldn't stand William Tear, I thought he was just the worst, but I think the novel wants us to like him. Perhaps not worship him like Lily, but at least believe in his vision, and believe in him.
As a result of the book lacing itself to this new plot, the overarching plot suffered as well. The pacing is namely what I felt was lacking here. Things were happening, but it felt like they were only happening to service the B Plot (Lily), when it should have been the other way around. There were still parts that I enjoyed, and all of the parts I enjoyed of the whole novel definitely came from Kelsea's story, but it still felt weighed down by Lily's. Even though I came into this book with good feelings towards these characters, I ended up losing those good feelings, and not caring about much except for Kelsea.
Kelsea was, and will continue to be in my memories of this series--as I do not plan on reading the concluding novel--the shining light for me. I genuinely really enjoy her as a protagonist, in the way of I find her very interesting, and I personally just like her very much. I think she has shown prominent growth throughout these two books, and I think it's been done in a believable and thoughtful way. She's complex and feels real as a result. Her struggles are also complex, and her dealings with rage are some of my favorite moments. I will probably look up a summary of how her story ends, just because no matter how I feel about the rest of it, Kelsea has a hold of me,
I was just expecting so much more from this, and it did not deliver for me. I didn't completely hate my time with it, but it was a struggle to finish by the end. There were moments I enjoyed, particularly the ones revolving around Kelsea and her inner monologue, but there was a lot that I just simply didn't care for. I think there are a lot of cool ideas floating around with this series, and it has a main character that I would rank highly among others I've read. However, the execution of these ideas fell so flat for me. It ended up feeling very run of the mill in many different ways, and while it was fine in the first one--I almost welcomed it--here it was stale.