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A review by tani
Shalador's Lady by Anne Bishop
4.0
For the most part, I could probably direct you my review of the prior book, and that would stand adequately for this book as well. In short, there is something that I find intrinsically satisfying about reading about the gender dynamics in this world, even though I know that they're extremely unhealthy, and certainly nothing that I would like to experience in real life. This book continues the story of Cassidy, so it still has most of the good points that I mentioned regarding a greater complexity in portraying people with lighter Jewels, the landen issue, and a return to Shalador/Dena Nehele, a setting that I very much enjoyed when it was originally introduced.
As far this book in particular, its greatest flaw is that it is just too long. Bishop spends a lot of time in the heads of people that I just didn't care to hang out with aka the supposed villains of the book, Kermilla and Theran. I can't complain too much about seeing things from Theran's point of view, as he was given time and space to grow as a character, but Kermilla... She has little to no growth, and remains a manipulative terror the entire book, so I don't think I really needed to see her thought patterns so frequently. The book would have read much more smoothly if she'd been edited down significantly.
I also was a bit disappointed in Cassidy. She spends so much time inside her own head, and I just wanted her to overcome her past. Instead, she manufactures extra drama because she's so out of touch with reality. And though I understand that to an extent, it was kind of disappointing to see in a book where she's ostensibly the main character. I actually ended up feeling like Grey was the actual main character. I liked Grey a lot, and I'm certainly not complaining about his presence, but I was definitely hoping for more from Cassidy.
The drama at the end of the book was also way too built up. I was pretty sure of how things were going to go down from the very beginning, so having to read so many pages to get there, only to have no twists and events transpiring exactly as I expected was kind of annoying. I feel like Bishop was just milking the story - she couldn't quite fit what she wanted to in the first book, so she drew things out tremendously in the second. I still enjoyed it, but I think I would have been happier to have had one longer book, rather than two shorter.
Same caveat as my first review applies: I can't really recommend these books if you're not already into them, as the gender politics are pretty terribly, but if you've read the previous books and liked them, you'll probably find this one strangely satisfying as well.
As far this book in particular, its greatest flaw is that it is just too long. Bishop spends a lot of time in the heads of people that I just didn't care to hang out with aka the supposed villains of the book, Kermilla and Theran. I can't complain too much about seeing things from Theran's point of view, as he was given time and space to grow as a character, but Kermilla... She has little to no growth, and remains a manipulative terror the entire book, so I don't think I really needed to see her thought patterns so frequently. The book would have read much more smoothly if she'd been edited down significantly.
I also was a bit disappointed in Cassidy. She spends so much time inside her own head, and I just wanted her to overcome her past. Instead, she manufactures extra drama because she's so out of touch with reality. And though I understand that to an extent, it was kind of disappointing to see in a book where she's ostensibly the main character. I actually ended up feeling like Grey was the actual main character. I liked Grey a lot, and I'm certainly not complaining about his presence, but I was definitely hoping for more from Cassidy.
The drama at the end of the book was also way too built up. I was pretty sure of how things were going to go down from the very beginning, so having to read so many pages to get there, only to have no twists and events transpiring exactly as I expected was kind of annoying. I feel like Bishop was just milking the story - she couldn't quite fit what she wanted to in the first book, so she drew things out tremendously in the second. I still enjoyed it, but I think I would have been happier to have had one longer book, rather than two shorter.
Same caveat as my first review applies: I can't really recommend these books if you're not already into them, as the gender politics are pretty terribly, but if you've read the previous books and liked them, you'll probably find this one strangely satisfying as well.