A review by hybridhavoc
Saint Death's Daughter by C.S.E. Cooney

adventurous emotional mysterious
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Overall I think this is a pretty good book. The structure gave me some pause part-way through, but only really because I'm so used to books that do the "Part 1/2/3" structure but are just delineating the three acts of their story. This book doesn't do that, and the parts are more akin to episodes of a mini-series.

I was also initially a little thrown off by wildly different tones in the book, but it turned out that there were pretty decent in-world reasons for this.
On surge days
the entire tone shifts into a sort of animated Disney movie sort of feel. Otherwise,
outside of the surge days,
this book's vibe reminds me a lot of Nettle & Bone.

That actually makes sense. Saint Death's Daughter and Nettle & Bone are both firmly fantastical fantasy. Nettle & Bone was likened to a modern fairy tale and I would agree with that. Saint Death's Daughter feels like it's walking a similar path to me.

If you're a fan of epic fantasy or Sanderson fantasy and you come into this book with that expectation, you may be disappointed.

My only issues with the book are:
  • The structure thing I've already mentioned, which stopped being a real issue once I reoriented.
  • Action and tension are often paused for exploring a character's feelings/thoughts or touching moments.
  • The ending felt a bit unsatisfactory.
    Yes, Miscellaneous saved the day but granting mercy and being banished just wasn't what I wanted there.
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