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A review by selbs2004
A Broken Blade by Melissa Blair
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
This book aims to represent the history and atrocity of the colonialism, oppression, and genocide of Indigenous people through a fantastical world of humans, fae, elves, and other creatures, and from an overall perspective, it does just that but often lacks depth through the narrative and writing style.
For one I feel as if this story of colonialism and bigotry could've been much more thorough if there were more perspectives to follow than just Keeras. Often I felt like Blair was spoonfeeding to the reader what they should feel at each part of the book, while also not allowing us to truly understand different perspectives specifically from other Shades, halfling females that are used as assassins and protectors of the crown. I wanted to more about the shades outside of Keera a character who even through her work for the crown aimed to protect as many halflings and innocents as she could but to me this doesn't aim to tell the whole story. A lot of what we know about the shades felt shallow and my only hope for the next 3 books is that we dig deeper into the different perspectives of the Shades positive or negative.
The writing style overall is unique, but the pacing often felt clunky and slow in the beginning but gradually got better as we learned more about Keera and the action and plot began to pick up. The dialogue and prose did feel at oftentimes redundant and repetitive and again I felt like all emotions and feelings the author was trying to evoke were being spoonfed to the reader instead of allowing us to truly understand through our insight of the story. Overall a lot of telling instead of showing when it came to the overarching plotlines
Speaking of plotlines that relied heavily on telling instead of showing another thing that largely irritated me is the core romantic plot line between Keera and Riven. That lacked chemistry and felt unnatural to the characters independently and felt like it aimed more to check a box of tropes that a booktok romantasy must follow. I often kept asking myself why Keera liked Riven outside of what was being told to us and we had no true understanding of Keera's attraction except for lust. I mean I can understand why Riven liked Keera, as it was often up to Keera to prove herself to Riven throughout the book, but Keera's attraction to Rievn felt incredibly forced.
Additionally this book was heavily marketed as an LGBT book, and I mean heavily to the point that I was expecting a much better representation of characters than the ones that we got. Keera's bisexuality felt like a shallow half-assed representation especially considering her only female love interest is only used to further Keera's internal character development, is the core root of her trauma, as well as used to push the plot forward as well as push her further into the male love interest and is passive outside of that. And this wouldn't have been such an issue for me if there were any actual same-sex relationships on page instead of constant subtle bisexuality and depthless gender introspection that does nothing for the plot, characters, or story.
Keera as an independent character though was amazing and was one of the only reasons I kept reading. She was strong, morally grey, and three-dimensional in a way that felt real and didn't lean too hard into the strong female character tropes and if it wasn't for the very distracting romantic plotline I would've been more engrossed in her as a character at the end of the book. If the next books focus more on her independently (especially regarding her substance abuse and her technical training) then I am incredibly excited to read more of her journey
Overall 3 stars with a hope for much more depth in the rest of the books.
For one I feel as if this story of colonialism and bigotry could've been much more thorough if there were more perspectives to follow than just Keeras. Often I felt like Blair was spoonfeeding to the reader what they should feel at each part of the book, while also not allowing us to truly understand different perspectives specifically from other Shades, halfling females that are used as assassins and protectors of the crown. I wanted to more about the shades outside of Keera a character who even through her work for the crown aimed to protect as many halflings and innocents as she could but to me this doesn't aim to tell the whole story. A lot of what we know about the shades felt shallow and my only hope for the next 3 books is that we dig deeper into the different perspectives of the Shades positive or negative.
The writing style overall is unique, but the pacing often felt clunky and slow in the beginning but gradually got better as we learned more about Keera and the action and plot began to pick up. The dialogue and prose did feel at oftentimes redundant and repetitive and again I felt like all emotions and feelings the author was trying to evoke were being spoonfed to the reader instead of allowing us to truly understand through our insight of the story. Overall a lot of telling instead of showing when it came to the overarching plotlines
Speaking of plotlines that relied heavily on telling instead of showing another thing that largely irritated me is the core romantic plot line between Keera and Riven. That lacked chemistry and felt unnatural to the characters independently and felt like it aimed more to check a box of tropes that a booktok romantasy must follow. I often kept asking myself why Keera liked Riven outside of what was being told to us and we had no true understanding of Keera's attraction except for lust. I mean I can understand why Riven liked Keera, as it was often up to Keera to prove herself to Riven throughout the book, but Keera's attraction to Rievn felt incredibly forced.
Additionally this book was heavily marketed as an LGBT book, and I mean heavily to the point that I was expecting a much better representation of characters than the ones that we got. Keera's bisexuality felt like a shallow half-assed representation especially considering her only female love interest is only used to further Keera's internal character development, is the core root of her trauma, as well as used to push the plot forward as well as push her further into the male love interest and is passive outside of that. And this wouldn't have been such an issue for me if there were any actual same-sex relationships on page instead of constant subtle bisexuality and depthless gender introspection that does nothing for the plot, characters, or story.
Keera as an independent character though was amazing and was one of the only reasons I kept reading. She was strong, morally grey, and three-dimensional in a way that felt real and didn't lean too hard into the strong female character tropes and if it wasn't for the very distracting romantic plotline I would've been more engrossed in her as a character at the end of the book. If the next books focus more on her independently (especially regarding her substance abuse and her technical training) then I am incredibly excited to read more of her journey
Overall 3 stars with a hope for much more depth in the rest of the books.