A review by elishevachang
In the Wake of Infinities by Ivana Skye

challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Very aggressive, curious, pushy novella addition to the Sehhinah series. Set after the third book, it dives inwards to explore deeply, rather than broadly, the implications of godhood as the series sets it up. It does this by revealing a preexisting character's own godhood to themself -- when that character themself is the person who least wants to hear that they're a god. Walks a careful tightrope between not closing down the wonderfully open ending of The Lives That Argue For Us, nor being pointless filler that doesn't change anything. This novella causes several scenes in the series to be recontextualized in an extra slant of light, but without retconning them, and in several cases by deepening implications that were already there. It has some of the most experimental and complex prose in the series as well, which works very well with the plot's harrowing focus on bitterly twisted, long-repressed trauma.

I think this novella's greatest strengths are its depiction of multi-layered trauma, which has taken on a form that manages to be both festering and calcified, where a new revelation is enough to tumble down a longstanding, precarious house of cards that has been keeping
Lucifer's mental health together for millennia, since being subjected to dehumanizing pedestaling and worship thousands of years ago from the other fallen who should have been their fellow survivors and friends.
And to turn it into a set of vicious weapons against themself and others. This depiction is tight, believable despite its severity, and written very, very cleverly. I'm taking a half a star off only because some of the other characters' positioning and behavior suffered a little in service to the main premise and the main character's character arc, and some of the overall plot was a bit contrived in comparison to other books in this series. 
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