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A review by aphelia88
Cloudbound by Fran Wilde
2.0
I really enjoyed the first book, [b:Updraft|18464362|Updraft (Bone Universe, #1)|Fran Wilde|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1442426865s/18464362.jpg|26121406], and I had high hopes for this one. Unfortunately, I think Wilde's decision to change narrators from Kirit to her friend Nat was a mistake. In Updraft, Nat was an interesting character: despite his father's tragic death from knowing too many Spire secrets, he was irrepressibly curious and determined to uncover the secrets of the City.
As this book starts, Nat is obsessed with proving his worth as a newly elected Junior Councillor, apprenticing under the trader Doran Grigit (the one Kirit was supposed to apprentice with in the last book, before she failed her wingtest). The City is being torn apart by tension, as the Tower folk blame the remaining Singers for the City's troubles. The Council wants to sentence the Singers to be thrown down in the clouds at a Conclave to reverse their bad luck.
But Nat is terribly indecisive, bouncing from contradictory thought to thought, often on the same page! Although he grew up like a brother to Kirit, he cannot forgive her "betrayal" when she was forced to joined the Singers. He hates Kirit, he loves Kirit, he doesn't believe Kirit, maybe he believes Kirit? She's skytouched, crazy. She makes too much sense. She is trying to save the City. He loves the City, the City is fine, the City is corrupt? No, the City needs saving!
You get the idea. It's exhausting. He just decides something and then changes his mind AGAIN. The pacing is also very problematic. It was a little jittery in at times in Updraft - suddenly it would shoot forward, or backward, like a missing frame. I thought it was stylistic, to increase the tension, and maybe that is the case - but it is too often utilized here, to the point that some parts of the narrative seem unfinished and disjointed, more like a skeleton draft not fleshed out.
The story drags terribly too. The first 3/4 could have been condensed to 1/4, mostly by cutting down on Nat's constant internal narrative and painstaking flight formation information. The ending is a HUGE cliffhanger, which is unfortunate as this was billed as a "companion" novel to the "standalone" Updraft - only to turn out to be the middle book of a trilogy!
When events finally pick up, when Nat and his group go below the Clouds, further than any before, to try retrieve proof of corruption in the Council, it seems almost anticlimactic.
Major issues:
1. The treatment of Dix: the corrupt Councillor tries to kill them all multiple times. She is killing the City by draining the Heartbone from the broken Spire. When it's clear that she will not stop and she double-crosses the group at their last attempt at negotiation below clouds, Nat and company have several chances to kill her. They do not. Why? She cannot be reasoned with, she will not stop trying to take over the city, and she is determined to kill them - why leave her in a position to do it all again? Although they leave her injured, it's obvious that she will come back to attack them again in the future. This series is far too dark for typical YA, and the characters are not children who have never killed before - although they persist in acting like it, for no apparent reason.
2. The identity of the City: as I suspected from the first, the bone towers of the City are borne on the back of a being. At the end of the book, they all tumble out of the Bone Forest onto the back of the City - which turns out to be an old, dying, immobile monster. On a desert plain filled with younger, more mobile monsters. And yet the scale between the people and the beast seems off - are the people teeny tiny? And where can Wilde possibly go from here?
This was a very promising series that went totally off the rails for me with this installment. I would read the third book, just to finish, but I hope that the viewpoint switches back to Kirit. Nat has every reason to be anxious, but the constant panic, repetition and indecisiveness was painful, not thrilling. Although the whole cast of secondary characters eventually reassembled, the Singers - Wik, and the young twins Moc and Ciel, and even Kirit - were so downtrodden and ill that you did not get much interaction.
The highlight for me was the Scavenger Aliati, who chose to help them navigate below the Clouds, using folktales and legends long forgotten by other citizens. Nat turned out to be an unlikeable character who is incredibly selfish - it's his priorities and thoughts and feelings that matter, bar none. The City should be saved because he - finally - wakes up and decides it needs to be saved. It is hard to have any empathy for him, or his story. I really hope the final book is better!
As this book starts, Nat is obsessed with proving his worth as a newly elected Junior Councillor, apprenticing under the trader Doran Grigit (the one Kirit was supposed to apprentice with in the last book, before she failed her wingtest). The City is being torn apart by tension, as the Tower folk blame the remaining Singers for the City's troubles. The Council wants to sentence the Singers to be thrown down in the clouds at a Conclave to reverse their bad luck.
But Nat is terribly indecisive, bouncing from contradictory thought to thought, often on the same page! Although he grew up like a brother to Kirit, he cannot forgive her "betrayal" when she was forced to joined the Singers. He hates Kirit, he loves Kirit, he doesn't believe Kirit, maybe he believes Kirit? She's skytouched, crazy. She makes too much sense. She is trying to save the City. He loves the City, the City is fine, the City is corrupt? No, the City needs saving!
You get the idea. It's exhausting. He just decides something and then changes his mind AGAIN. The pacing is also very problematic. It was a little jittery in at times in Updraft - suddenly it would shoot forward, or backward, like a missing frame. I thought it was stylistic, to increase the tension, and maybe that is the case - but it is too often utilized here, to the point that some parts of the narrative seem unfinished and disjointed, more like a skeleton draft not fleshed out.
The story drags terribly too. The first 3/4 could have been condensed to 1/4, mostly by cutting down on Nat's constant internal narrative and painstaking flight formation information. The ending is a HUGE cliffhanger, which is unfortunate as this was billed as a "companion" novel to the "standalone" Updraft - only to turn out to be the middle book of a trilogy!
When events finally pick up, when Nat and his group go below the Clouds, further than any before, to try retrieve proof of corruption in the Council, it seems almost anticlimactic.
Major issues:
Spoiler
1. The treatment of Dix: the corrupt Councillor tries to kill them all multiple times. She is killing the City by draining the Heartbone from the broken Spire. When it's clear that she will not stop and she double-crosses the group at their last attempt at negotiation below clouds, Nat and company have several chances to kill her. They do not. Why? She cannot be reasoned with, she will not stop trying to take over the city, and she is determined to kill them - why leave her in a position to do it all again? Although they leave her injured, it's obvious that she will come back to attack them again in the future. This series is far too dark for typical YA, and the characters are not children who have never killed before - although they persist in acting like it, for no apparent reason.
2. The identity of the City: as I suspected from the first, the bone towers of the City are borne on the back of a being. At the end of the book, they all tumble out of the Bone Forest onto the back of the City - which turns out to be an old, dying, immobile monster. On a desert plain filled with younger, more mobile monsters. And yet the scale between the people and the beast seems off - are the people teeny tiny? And where can Wilde possibly go from here?
This was a very promising series that went totally off the rails for me with this installment. I would read the third book, just to finish, but I hope that the viewpoint switches back to Kirit. Nat has every reason to be anxious, but the constant panic, repetition and indecisiveness was painful, not thrilling. Although the whole cast of secondary characters eventually reassembled, the Singers - Wik, and the young twins Moc and Ciel, and even Kirit - were so downtrodden and ill that you did not get much interaction.
The highlight for me was the Scavenger Aliati, who chose to help them navigate below the Clouds, using folktales and legends long forgotten by other citizens. Nat turned out to be an unlikeable character who is incredibly selfish - it's his priorities and thoughts and feelings that matter, bar none. The City should be saved because he - finally - wakes up and decides it needs to be saved. It is hard to have any empathy for him, or his story. I really hope the final book is better!