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A review by bigdreamsandwildthings
Bid My Soul Farewell by Beth Revis
4.0
"Grief was like a fleshbane spider bite. It caused a wound that tore a chunk out of you. Grey seemed to think that mourning was like healing from a razor slicing through skin - it hurt, but it would heal, leaving nothing but a faint scar. But really, grief left a hole in you, and while you healed around the hole, you never didn’t have it. A piece of you was gone. You couldn’t heal something that wasn’t there."
This was a worthy sequel to what has become one of my most memorable books of the year, Give the Dark My Love. It's just as dark, gritty, and unafraid to delve into some really deep questions and real-world issues.
After defeating the necromancer behind the plague and saving the Emperor, Nedra Brysstain is back in her quarantine hospital with her revenants. All she cares about is finding a way to bring back her sister Nessie's soul, but as time wears thin, so too do her revenants. Meanwhile, Grey seems to be favoured by the newly-returned Emperor, who decides to send him to the north, to find some way to increase their exports to the mainland and therefore increase their wealth and quality of life. Grey realizes that doing as the Emperor bids him, and becoming closer to him in the process, threatens Nedra's life; she is, after all, a necromancer, who should not be suffered to live. But both Nedra and Grey are dealing with a foe that they could not have conjured in their wildest dreams, and Nedra may have to descend even further into darkness to defeat them.
I've read a few other reviews that discuss how they're only invested in these characters because of book one, and I actually somewhat agree with that. In this book, both Grey and Nedra remain the same. Grey changes subtly, discovering his own naivety and gaining a bit more perspective on his world, but Nedra especially is very single-minded. Where her character went through SO MUCH GROWTH in book one in her descent into the darkness, here, she is more like a shell of herself. She only wants to save Nessie.
But I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. I was quite invested in Grey's story especially, which I didn't expect, since I thought he was a weak point in the first book. The way that politics are key to his story, the commentary on tradition versus modernity and cultural appropriation and all of it, was fascinating to me. I wanted to see how his rose-coloured glasses, his mission, and Nedra's character would ultimately combine, and that kept me reading, and absolutely devouring, this one.
And the ending took me by surprise. I thought that this was written in a really tight, interesting way; I had each character's ultimate goals in mind at all times, but there were also these little tidbits of information fed to us along the way that didn't fit. The mural of the old Emperor, another necromancer sending Nedra things...I was rather satisfied with how it all ended up fitting together in the end.
I take off a star for this one also because I don't like the epilogue. I don't like how the author ultimately wrapped things up in two pages. I thought that Nedra and Grey deserved a more realistic ending, one that didn't feel quite so rushed, and one that didn't force Nedra into a mold that I truly don't think she fit into by the end of everything.
However, that said, I found this duology extremely engaging. It is so dark, disturbingly so at times, but if you like your fantasy with those kinds of overtones, then this is a series I will 100% recommend. I love how real-world issues like inequality, poverty, and class divides are tackled, but also with zombies and magic alongside them. I really, really enjoyed this world and the characters in it.
This was a worthy sequel to what has become one of my most memorable books of the year, Give the Dark My Love. It's just as dark, gritty, and unafraid to delve into some really deep questions and real-world issues.
After defeating the necromancer behind the plague and saving the Emperor, Nedra Brysstain is back in her quarantine hospital with her revenants. All she cares about is finding a way to bring back her sister Nessie's soul, but as time wears thin, so too do her revenants. Meanwhile, Grey seems to be favoured by the newly-returned Emperor, who decides to send him to the north, to find some way to increase their exports to the mainland and therefore increase their wealth and quality of life. Grey realizes that doing as the Emperor bids him, and becoming closer to him in the process, threatens Nedra's life; she is, after all, a necromancer, who should not be suffered to live. But both Nedra and Grey are dealing with a foe that they could not have conjured in their wildest dreams, and Nedra may have to descend even further into darkness to defeat them.
I've read a few other reviews that discuss how they're only invested in these characters because of book one, and I actually somewhat agree with that. In this book, both Grey and Nedra remain the same. Grey changes subtly, discovering his own naivety and gaining a bit more perspective on his world, but Nedra especially is very single-minded. Where her character went through SO MUCH GROWTH in book one in her descent into the darkness, here, she is more like a shell of herself. She only wants to save Nessie.
But I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. I was quite invested in Grey's story especially, which I didn't expect, since I thought he was a weak point in the first book. The way that politics are key to his story, the commentary on tradition versus modernity and cultural appropriation and all of it, was fascinating to me. I wanted to see how his rose-coloured glasses, his mission, and Nedra's character would ultimately combine, and that kept me reading, and absolutely devouring, this one.
And the ending took me by surprise. I thought that this was written in a really tight, interesting way; I had each character's ultimate goals in mind at all times, but there were also these little tidbits of information fed to us along the way that didn't fit. The mural of the old Emperor, another necromancer sending Nedra things...I was rather satisfied with how it all ended up fitting together in the end.
I take off a star for this one also because I don't like the epilogue. I don't like how the author ultimately wrapped things up in two pages. I thought that Nedra and Grey deserved a more realistic ending, one that didn't feel quite so rushed, and one that didn't force Nedra into a mold that I truly don't think she fit into by the end of everything.
However, that said, I found this duology extremely engaging. It is so dark, disturbingly so at times, but if you like your fantasy with those kinds of overtones, then this is a series I will 100% recommend. I love how real-world issues like inequality, poverty, and class divides are tackled, but also with zombies and magic alongside them. I really, really enjoyed this world and the characters in it.