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A review by yvonne_aaf
The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I'm honestly speechless, I don't think I've ever experienced such a wide range of emotions when reading a novel, which makes it all the more difficult to coherently explain my thoughts. I feel like this book had the potential to become one of my all-time favourites, but I think that there were a few areas where I felt the book 'slipped' slightly.
I adored the world-building, and the battle scenes, in particular, were written with such detail and vividness - I could picture the entire novel playing out as a movie in my head. This book does not shy away from the gore, horrors and cruelty of war and imperialism, and descriptions of many events certainly reflect that. The depth, complexity, and fallibility of the characters made them so believable - Kuni Garu and Mata Zyndu are characters that I don't think will leave me for a long, long time.
Slight rant: I lowkey hated the direction that Mata's character headed in, especially in the latter half of the book. Whilst I loved the juxtaposition of Kuni's cunning and heart, vs Mata's sheer strength and bravery, I felt like Mata was fashioned into a stupid character, and made decisions that were believable in context and were necessary to advance the plot, but also oddly out of character :/ don't even get me STARTED on the ending
From what I understand, this book (and its subsequent novels) is a re-imagining of the rise of the Han dynasty, and because of this, I understand why there appears to be such a distinct lack of female characters; it's reflective of society at that time. They are not entirely absent, and actually feature prominently in places, but their presence didn't make the reading experience any less jarring at times. In places, I felt as if I was just watching a 'male fantasy' play out on the pages (that's quite vague, I think, but I can't describe it any other way).
In a weirdly meta way, the book kind of talks about the way that most of them only appear in relation to male characters in the male-centric story, and whilst I thought this was really interesting, it didn't alleviate how alienated I felt from the book at times.
It's a beast of a book, and took me a really long time to finish; the pacing dipped at times and I considered dnf-ing, especially at times that I felt the female characters were entirely irritating. However, I really thought it was worth it and I'll be holding onto my copy for the foreseeable future because the story really meshed it's way into my heart.
This book has taught me a lot about what I like in a fantasy novel, I now know that I need strong characters, solid worldbuilding, and a complex female cast. Despite how much I loved it, I won't be picking up the rest of the trilogy - I'd rather just leave the story as it is, untarnished in my memory by any future storylines that I have a strong feeling I won't enjoy at all :)
I adored the world-building, and the battle scenes, in particular, were written with such detail and vividness - I could picture the entire novel playing out as a movie in my head. This book does not shy away from the gore, horrors and cruelty of war and imperialism, and descriptions of many events certainly reflect that. The depth, complexity, and fallibility of the characters made them so believable - Kuni Garu and Mata Zyndu are characters that I don't think will leave me for a long, long time.
From what I understand, this book (and its subsequent novels) is a re-imagining of the rise of the Han dynasty, and because of this, I understand why there appears to be such a distinct lack of female characters; it's reflective of society at that time. They are not entirely absent, and actually feature prominently in places, but their presence didn't make the reading experience any less jarring at times. In places, I felt as if I was just watching a 'male fantasy' play out on the pages (that's quite vague, I think, but I can't describe it any other way).
In a weirdly meta way, the book kind of talks about the way that most of them only appear in relation to male characters in the male-centric story, and whilst I thought this was really interesting, it didn't alleviate how alienated I felt from the book at times.
It's a beast of a book, and took me a really long time to finish; the pacing dipped at times and I considered dnf-ing, especially at times that I felt the female characters were entirely irritating. However, I really thought it was worth it and I'll be holding onto my copy for the foreseeable future because the story really meshed it's way into my heart.
This book has taught me a lot about what I like in a fantasy novel, I now know that I need strong characters, solid worldbuilding, and a complex female cast. Despite how much I loved it, I won't be picking up the rest of the trilogy - I'd rather just leave the story as it is, untarnished in my memory by any future storylines that I have a strong feeling I won't enjoy at all :)
Content Warnings
Graphic: War