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A review by writingwwolves
Seraphina's Lament by Sarah Chorn
4.0
Rating: 4.5 Stars
I was so excited to get my teeth into a gritty, adult fantasy & Sarah’s work hit the spot perfectly! In this book we get to see the best & the worst of humanity, we experience love & hate in their purest forms, & in their most complicated forms, & we get to see the making & the unmaking of mankind. I loved the concept of this story, something which I can’t explain without spoiling the plot, & because of the creativity that has gone into it, I was clueless about where things were heading. This is a book that allows you to work out the basic idea of the ending, but everything up until that point is impossible to predict & I loved that. I was full of questions throughout, but in a more-ish & intoxicating kind of way. Seraphina’s Lament could quite easily be a strong standalone, but it’s clear that Sarah has so much more to give with this series, & I cannot wait!
⚠️ This book includes famine, poverty, classism, starvation, people being set on fire, murder, cannibalism, slavery, “forced labour” camps, arson, disability caused by violence, chronic pain, ableism in the form of deliberately making life harder for the disabled character, detailed & gory torture, dissection & some sexual references ⚠️
♿️ Title character Seraphina is disabled after being badly beaten by another character in the story; this happens before the events of the book, but there are some details of what happened. Author Sarah Chorn is also disabled, like myself, & her portrayal of a disabled character in a fantasy story was incredibly refreshing. Despite the transformations that occur in the book, Seraphina is never ‘cured’ & I’m very grateful to Sarah for that. Seraphina is shown to be in pain a lot but, in my opinion, it’s an accurate portrayal of living with a disability & I feel that it is excellent representation ♿️
I was sent a digital copy of this book by the author in return for an honest review.
Extended Review to follow.
I was so excited to get my teeth into a gritty, adult fantasy & Sarah’s work hit the spot perfectly! In this book we get to see the best & the worst of humanity, we experience love & hate in their purest forms, & in their most complicated forms, & we get to see the making & the unmaking of mankind. I loved the concept of this story, something which I can’t explain without spoiling the plot, & because of the creativity that has gone into it, I was clueless about where things were heading. This is a book that allows you to work out the basic idea of the ending, but everything up until that point is impossible to predict & I loved that. I was full of questions throughout, but in a more-ish & intoxicating kind of way. Seraphina’s Lament could quite easily be a strong standalone, but it’s clear that Sarah has so much more to give with this series, & I cannot wait!
⚠️ This book includes famine, poverty, classism, starvation, people being set on fire, murder, cannibalism, slavery, “forced labour” camps, arson, disability caused by violence, chronic pain, ableism in the form of deliberately making life harder for the disabled character, detailed & gory torture, dissection & some sexual references ⚠️
♿️ Title character Seraphina is disabled after being badly beaten by another character in the story; this happens before the events of the book, but there are some details of what happened. Author Sarah Chorn is also disabled, like myself, & her portrayal of a disabled character in a fantasy story was incredibly refreshing. Despite the transformations that occur in the book, Seraphina is never ‘cured’ & I’m very grateful to Sarah for that. Seraphina is shown to be in pain a lot but, in my opinion, it’s an accurate portrayal of living with a disability & I feel that it is excellent representation ♿️
I was sent a digital copy of this book by the author in return for an honest review.
Extended Review to follow.