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A review by callunavulgari
The King of Crows by Libba Bray
4.0
I'm going to be completely honest - the only reason this book is getting a 4 star rating is my continuing love for the series as a whole and how January LaVoy could literally make paint drying sound interesting if she narrated it. Remember reading the seventh Harry Potter book? And how you were just flabbergasted by how many pages it took for nothing to happen? Do you remember the camping? That's how this book felt. The feel of this book was so unlike the others that it was straight up disorienting at times. I didn't feel like I was reading the same series I fell in love with. Maybe if the tone of the series had shifted with the series, it would have been different, but like this it was just kind of offputting.
Things that I did like:
-For all that the "camping" was annoying, I liked the fact that when she split the Diviners up for a bit, they were in dynamics we haven't really seen interact. Bill and Memphis and Henry. Theta and Evie and Isaiah and Sam. Jericho and Ling. JERICHO AND LING.
-I liked the circus. Basically everything about it.
-I liked Alma and Ling having some difficulty fitting things together, but how they did anyway.
-I liked that Theta got to blaze up like a phoenix and make some Klan members shit their sheets.
-Proposal
Things that I really didn't like:
-Nebraska. Everything about Nebraska. From kittens to Isaiah to Bill.
-What Mabel was made into. Though the final scene with her and Evie made me cry.
-Again, everything was just kind of okay. This book didn't blow me away. They spent half the book roadtripping and then another dozen chapters having bad things happen in Nebraska and then when the end came it was basically blink and you'll miss it. Also, I'd called that tragedy since the beginning of the book.
-I didn't like that they ended the book with a radio broadcast of Hitler? Like I get that all that shit is happening but please just let them have a brief moment of happiness?
Over all, was it a bad book? Mmm, kind of. Did I like the ending? It was a pretty solid meh. If I reread these books again (which I just had, in preparation for this, so the change in basically everything is pretty stark) I probably wouldn't reread this one. Or hell, maybe I would and I'd like it more with distance and time. However, I do want to say in defense of Libba Bray that final books are really hard to live up to. We build up a lot of expectations as we read, and sometimes our ideas don't match up with the authors. Libba Bray is a wonderful author who created a fantastic world with a wonderful cast.
And as always, January LaVoy was a joy to listen to.
Things that I did like:
-For all that the "camping" was annoying, I liked the fact that when she split the Diviners up for a bit, they were in dynamics we haven't really seen interact. Bill and Memphis and Henry. Theta and Evie and Isaiah and Sam. Jericho and Ling. JERICHO AND LING.
-I liked the circus. Basically everything about it.
-I liked Alma and Ling having some difficulty fitting things together, but how they did anyway.
-I liked that Theta got to blaze up like a phoenix and make some Klan members shit their sheets.
-Proposal
Things that I really didn't like:
-Nebraska. Everything about Nebraska. From kittens to Isaiah to Bill.
-What Mabel was made into. Though the final scene with her and Evie made me cry.
-Again, everything was just kind of okay. This book didn't blow me away. They spent half the book roadtripping and then another dozen chapters having bad things happen in Nebraska and then when the end came it was basically blink and you'll miss it. Also, I'd called that tragedy since the beginning of the book.
-I didn't like that they ended the book with a radio broadcast of Hitler? Like I get that all that shit is happening but please just let them have a brief moment of happiness?
Over all, was it a bad book? Mmm, kind of. Did I like the ending? It was a pretty solid meh. If I reread these books again (which I just had, in preparation for this, so the change in basically everything is pretty stark) I probably wouldn't reread this one. Or hell, maybe I would and I'd like it more with distance and time. However, I do want to say in defense of Libba Bray that final books are really hard to live up to. We build up a lot of expectations as we read, and sometimes our ideas don't match up with the authors. Libba Bray is a wonderful author who created a fantastic world with a wonderful cast.
And as always, January LaVoy was a joy to listen to.