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A review by chirson
Black Wolves by Kate Elliott
4.0
More like 3.5 stars, although I was gripped and I loved it (and yet all my tiny complaints are about to get lodged below, this is not really a review, these are my personal reflections and an expression of suffering ;))
I feel like I need a comfort read after this (why hasn't the new Courtney Milan come out yet?!)... Not really what I expected. While it's definitely got signature Kate Elliott's touches, it was also immensely difficult to read for me, to the point of putting it down repeatedly because of how raw the grief of the novel felt. Atani, representing the possibility of making a positive change in the world, is the emotional centre of this novel, and it's brilliant but also actually painful.
Putting aside my bad boy crush on Anji leftover from early parts of Crossroads (which, truth be told, finally suffered a real blow towards the end of this book when we find out about him closing Devourer's temples), I just couldn't get behind the older male protagonist. I know that Kellas is a clever trope reversal and yet I think I might have liked him better without the flashbacks, without his early interactions with Mai (and much as I loved Mai in Crossroads, here her presence, even though it was strategically deployed, still seemed somewhat strange. She was too perfect, I guess?), because the relationship between them just didn't strike me as convincing - and the more the book tried to sell them to me as the OTP, the more I disliked it. She told him to find a way to see her and he was into it because of how beautiful she was and because he was risking his life and that's hot. Not to me :/ (I kind of really wish Mai was the bisexual storyline in this novel. That could have been fun.)
Storylines of Gil and Lifka don't quite go where they are to go yet, in my opinion - I suppose the payout there is to come. For now, Lifka is adorable and interesting, but Gil didn't really endear himself too much. Not bad, but nothing terribly memorable.
The storylines of Dannarah and Sarai, predictably, made the biggest impressions. I've read that Kate Elliott had some readers complain about Dannarah being too "unlikable" and I obviously disagree with that assessment, but I think there is something to be said about her storyline being unpleasant to a certain extent... Especially compared to Kellas's (who, while being a decent if somewhat shallow guy, basically stumbled across love and purpose thanks to his erection pointing in the right direction at the right moment) - in turn, Dannarah is very driven and I appreciate how her privilege and hero-worship of her father blind her, and yet it feels like her life is shown in awfully grey tones. She had lovers, but nothing terribly lasting. Her first (and perhaps one of the most relevant, if we are to judge by her early PoV and blushing) sexual experience was coercive on her part, and she regrets it (sometimes). Her beloved brother didn't trust her and lied to her and then died, her father didn't love her enough to do for her what the emperor of the Sirkanian empire is willing to do for his daughter, she dropped the baton on staying in touch with the rest of her family, her influence on the reeve halls seems to be pretty negligible, she keeps betting on the wrong horse and making the wrong choices and she doesn't even seem to have much good to live for, and then she makes the obviously incorrect choice at the end, despite all the chances to open her eyes (why didn't she talk to her brother's widow(s) more?). (I suppose her being a reeve should be that positive element, and her chosen family, but other than Tarnit who is that? How close are they? She doesn't even seem to have that much of a bond with her own eagle, and that's another complaint I'd have, the eagles weren't terribly emotionally convincing this time around.) So generally, I liked her, but I kept feeling very sad for her.
And my other favourite storyline, Sarai, had a great conclusion (which reminded me of Cat Barahal's adventures a little), the heroine was overall amazing, and yet it also made me sad because, regardless of the brief reappearance of Sarai's ex, Elit, towards the end (to reaffirm the bisexuality and avoid the appearance of Lesbian-Until-Graduation undertones, a cynic might say), that storyline begins with a well-depicted queer woman who then basically passes as straight and has a straight-ish storyline. And I *like* arranged marriage stories, but the fact that all main romantic relationships of this novel are opposite-sex, putting a bi character in one of them (a bi woman who lets go of waiting for her almost-lost female lover to be with a man for pragmatic reasons and yet finds love there) just rubbed me the wrong way. The worst part was when she says that she loves him because he didn't care about her shame and so on. So is this something Elit never gave her? :(
Overall I really, really loved the writing, the style, the structure and the characters and the worldbuilding. But I wish it hurt slightly less and was slightly more satisfying and that the relationship between Sarai and Elit didn't seem to be alternatively backstory / a plot contrivance.
(And now on to the most important complaint: when does the sequel come out I NEED IT IN MY LIFE.)
I feel like I need a comfort read after this (why hasn't the new Courtney Milan come out yet?!)... Not really what I expected. While it's definitely got signature Kate Elliott's touches, it was also immensely difficult to read for me, to the point of putting it down repeatedly because of how raw the grief of the novel felt. Atani, representing the possibility of making a positive change in the world, is the emotional centre of this novel, and it's brilliant but also actually painful.
Putting aside my bad boy crush on Anji leftover from early parts of Crossroads (which, truth be told, finally suffered a real blow towards the end of this book when we find out about him closing Devourer's temples), I just couldn't get behind the older male protagonist. I know that Kellas is a clever trope reversal and yet I think I might have liked him better without the flashbacks, without his early interactions with Mai (and much as I loved Mai in Crossroads, here her presence, even though it was strategically deployed, still seemed somewhat strange. She was too perfect, I guess?), because the relationship between them just didn't strike me as convincing - and the more the book tried to sell them to me as the OTP, the more I disliked it. She told him to find a way to see her and he was into it because of how beautiful she was and because he was risking his life and that's hot. Not to me :/ (I kind of really wish Mai was the bisexual storyline in this novel. That could have been fun.)
Storylines of Gil and Lifka don't quite go where they are to go yet, in my opinion - I suppose the payout there is to come. For now, Lifka is adorable and interesting, but Gil didn't really endear himself too much. Not bad, but nothing terribly memorable.
The storylines of Dannarah and Sarai, predictably, made the biggest impressions. I've read that Kate Elliott had some readers complain about Dannarah being too "unlikable" and I obviously disagree with that assessment, but I think there is something to be said about her storyline being unpleasant to a certain extent... Especially compared to Kellas's (who, while being a decent if somewhat shallow guy, basically stumbled across love and purpose thanks to his erection pointing in the right direction at the right moment) - in turn, Dannarah is very driven and I appreciate how her privilege and hero-worship of her father blind her, and yet it feels like her life is shown in awfully grey tones. She had lovers, but nothing terribly lasting. Her first (and perhaps one of the most relevant, if we are to judge by her early PoV and blushing) sexual experience was coercive on her part, and she regrets it (sometimes). Her beloved brother didn't trust her and lied to her and then died, her father didn't love her enough to do for her what the emperor of the Sirkanian empire is willing to do for his daughter, she dropped the baton on staying in touch with the rest of her family, her influence on the reeve halls seems to be pretty negligible, she keeps betting on the wrong horse and making the wrong choices and she doesn't even seem to have much good to live for, and then she makes the obviously incorrect choice at the end, despite all the chances to open her eyes (why didn't she talk to her brother's widow(s) more?). (I suppose her being a reeve should be that positive element, and her chosen family, but other than Tarnit who is that? How close are they? She doesn't even seem to have that much of a bond with her own eagle, and that's another complaint I'd have, the eagles weren't terribly emotionally convincing this time around.) So generally, I liked her, but I kept feeling very sad for her.
And my other favourite storyline, Sarai, had a great conclusion (which reminded me of Cat Barahal's adventures a little), the heroine was overall amazing, and yet it also made me sad because, regardless of the brief reappearance of Sarai's ex, Elit, towards the end (to reaffirm the bisexuality and avoid the appearance of Lesbian-Until-Graduation undertones, a cynic might say), that storyline begins with a well-depicted queer woman who then basically passes as straight and has a straight-ish storyline. And I *like* arranged marriage stories, but the fact that all main romantic relationships of this novel are opposite-sex, putting a bi character in one of them (a bi woman who lets go of waiting for her almost-lost female lover to be with a man for pragmatic reasons and yet finds love there) just rubbed me the wrong way. The worst part was when she says that she loves him because he didn't care about her shame and so on. So is this something Elit never gave her? :(
Overall I really, really loved the writing, the style, the structure and the characters and the worldbuilding. But I wish it hurt slightly less and was slightly more satisfying and that the relationship between Sarai and Elit didn't seem to be alternatively backstory / a plot contrivance.
(And now on to the most important complaint: when does the sequel come out I NEED IT IN MY LIFE.)