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A review by eliasbouchard
City of Lies by Sam Hawke
3.0
+ rating: 2.7 stars.
now this is a well written and slow burn of a political fantasy read im sure but really, being unnecessarily flawed is one of the thing this book is good at as well and im really mad about all the fun the author could have had with the concept but managed to write the most dull yet interesting shit ive ever read. which like yeah. ive a lot of conflicting thoughts about this book. but anyway.
it features alternative point of view of siblings which is inherently a very sexy structure i enjoy bc dual pov + a promise of forefront siblings dynamics is just. good shit. so the disappointment i felt when i discovered that both pov have almost the same narrative tone really hit me alright. at some point it just became so difficult to keep track of whose pov is happening that ive to manually make sure who is it we are following by checking the chapter title.
but at the same time, while the first person pov change doesn't really offer much voice to whoever the pov belongs to, it does adds up a flare of its own to the political intrigue in general. this book was a really good political fantasy treat with a mystery wrapped up in it and i enjoyed that particular aspect a lot. and the pov change contributed to that enjoyment for me.
though the pov (any of them) in general favours jovan a lot and kalina feels a lot more underdeveloped than jovan (neither of them really stand out on their own tho anyway but eh-- in comparison ig?) the other characters were pretty lukewarm. the antagonist's motivation were super weak, the plot.....twist or just certain plot points and the (magical) conclusion were far way too convenient for it to be believable. it's really a mess by the end.
a political fantasy rests a lot on its characters' complexity/depth which is lacking here to an extent. so my biggest issue here really, is just. the characters.
alright. hm. so this was a really lukewarm read of the day i guess. it isnt necessary bad. the writing is gorgeous and i really did enjoy my time with this book but i was hoping for a good read not an underwhelming one for which i just mourn for its underutilized potential.
[ also like. what a cis centric queernorm society lmao. like 'he or she' just say 'they' wow.]
[ oh and while we are at it, good lord i did not see hadrea/jovan thing. i do not see it. why couldnt we just have hadrea/kalina please. or in fact, none of them stand on their own anyway so any of them having the chance to have any good chemistry isnt even like in the equation? how about a no romance campaign. huh ]
now this is a well written and slow burn of a political fantasy read im sure but really, being unnecessarily flawed is one of the thing this book is good at as well and im really mad about all the fun the author could have had with the concept but managed to write the most dull yet interesting shit ive ever read. which like yeah. ive a lot of conflicting thoughts about this book. but anyway.
it features alternative point of view of siblings which is inherently a very sexy structure i enjoy bc dual pov + a promise of forefront siblings dynamics is just. good shit. so the disappointment i felt when i discovered that both pov have almost the same narrative tone really hit me alright. at some point it just became so difficult to keep track of whose pov is happening that ive to manually make sure who is it we are following by checking the chapter title.
but at the same time, while the first person pov change doesn't really offer much voice to whoever the pov belongs to, it does adds up a flare of its own to the political intrigue in general. this book was a really good political fantasy treat with a mystery wrapped up in it and i enjoyed that particular aspect a lot. and the pov change contributed to that enjoyment for me.
though the pov (any of them) in general favours jovan a lot and kalina feels a lot more underdeveloped than jovan (neither of them really stand out on their own tho anyway but eh-- in comparison ig?) the other characters were pretty lukewarm. the antagonist's motivation were super weak, the plot.....twist or just certain plot points and the (magical) conclusion were far way too convenient for it to be believable. it's really a mess by the end.
a political fantasy rests a lot on its characters' complexity/depth which is lacking here to an extent. so my biggest issue here really, is just. the characters.
alright. hm. so this was a really lukewarm read of the day i guess. it isnt necessary bad. the writing is gorgeous and i really did enjoy my time with this book but i was hoping for a good read not an underwhelming one for which i just mourn for its underutilized potential.
[ also like. what a cis centric queernorm society lmao. like 'he or she' just say 'they' wow.]