You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by galacticvampire
A Reaper at the Gates by Sabaa Tahir
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
2.5
Is this book straight-out bad? No. Is it pretty much useless? Definitely.
It is, in my opinion, very alarming if the only purpose of a WHOLE 60-CHAPTER-500-PAGE-LONG book is build up to the big finale fight. Sure, there's some interesting things happening on the last 150 pages or so, but everything else seems repetitive and stalling and just shows me that the series could've easily been a trilogy with some good editing and trimming.
Laia is still extremely bland. We're supposed to think that ooooh she's got some Darkness waiting on her soul but she literally doesn't do a single thing in this book. Not even her failures are despairing because we don't get time to wallow on them. She walks around and talk to some people, whines and then her effort are unmade and then she has to walk around again and repeat. Zero impact on the actual storyline.
Elias was my favorite character the first two books, and his arc itself is actually very good. But it felt like the author ran out of ideas of what to do with him and streched what she had to fill his third of the book. We end up with a good chunk of filler chapters that, if cut off by 60%, would've made a very interesting and deep storyline.
Now, Helene (or The Blood Shrike) is easily the most entertaining part. She grew immensely on me as the books went on and very clearly is the center point of the actual plot of the book. Multiple povs don't have to be equally split, we could've had more of her without all those "and then 2 weeks passed" if we had cut a bit from Elias and Laia. My only grip with her is that, theoretically, she's one of the greatest students and a well trained soldier but! She keeps making stupid decisions! I lost count on how many times it went like
Hel: "oh I know the Commandment is plotting something, I'll not play onto her hand".
Avitas: "I don't think this is a good idea, something is wrong"
Hel: *proceeds to do exactly what the Commandment wanted her to* Like???
I love Avitas and Dex and Faris and Livia and, can you see all those are from the Blood Shrike povs?
Ultimately, this book had potential and some very interesting plot decisions and twists, but it's watered down by a whole lot of pointless stalling.
It is, in my opinion, very alarming if the only purpose of a WHOLE 60-CHAPTER-500-PAGE-LONG book is build up to the big finale fight. Sure, there's some interesting things happening on the last 150 pages or so, but everything else seems repetitive and stalling and just shows me that the series could've easily been a trilogy with some good editing and trimming.
Laia is still extremely bland. We're supposed to think that ooooh she's got some Darkness waiting on her soul but she literally doesn't do a single thing in this book. Not even her failures are despairing because we don't get time to wallow on them. She walks around and talk to some people, whines and then her effort are unmade and then she has to walk around again and repeat. Zero impact on the actual storyline.
Elias was my favorite character the first two books, and his arc itself is actually very good. But it felt like the author ran out of ideas of what to do with him and streched what she had to fill his third of the book. We end up with a good chunk of filler chapters that, if cut off by 60%, would've made a very interesting and deep storyline.
Now, Helene (or The Blood Shrike) is easily the most entertaining part. She grew immensely on me as the books went on and very clearly is the center point of the actual plot of the book. Multiple povs don't have to be equally split, we could've had more of her without all those "and then 2 weeks passed" if we had cut a bit from Elias and Laia. My only grip with her is that, theoretically, she's one of the greatest students and a well trained soldier but! She keeps making stupid decisions! I lost count on how many times it went like
Hel: "oh I know the Commandment is plotting something, I'll not play onto her hand".
Avitas: "I don't think this is a good idea, something is wrong"
Hel: *proceeds to do exactly what the Commandment wanted her to* Like???
I love Avitas and Dex and Faris and Livia and, can you see all those are from the Blood Shrike povs?
Ultimately, this book had potential and some very interesting plot decisions and twists, but it's watered down by a whole lot of pointless stalling.