Scan barcode
A review by agameofbooks
Castle of Lies by Kiersi Burkhart
2.0
ARC provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
As usual I needed time to get into the story, especially since Castle of Lies is one that involves an entirely new world and is told from the perspective of four different characters: Thelia, Parsifal, Bayled and Sapphire. We follow the characters as they are faced with an evil overtaking by elves who want to purge the city from all Magic. Unfortunately I never managed to immerse myself completely. A multitude of different plots and ruses were wound together and there was too much going on at the same time. It seemed overly complicated in setup, but lacked in depth. A very strange paradox of you ask me.
In my opinion this novel was trying too hard to resemble great series like Game of Thrones and Throne of Glass, but it never even got close to reaching that level. Especially since two of the characters that told the story were constantly in the same place. This added only confusion as to who was speaking at the time, especially with so many changes in point of view. Additionally, none of the characters got enough page time to truly develop them properly. This left them flat and cliché and made the story unimaginative.
Finally there was the involvement of the elf Sapphire, who was constantly referred to as ‘them’ instead of ‘him’ or ‘her’. Apparently, in a strange reference to gender neutrality, this elf never choose whether it was male or female and therefore had to be referred to as ‘them’. It was very difficult to wrap my mind around the fact that it was still just one person, not more as the plural ‘them’ would suggest. Also, why the strange love triangle between Thelia, Parsifal and Sapphire? Completely unnecessary.
This story could have been great, unfortunately it wasn’t in my opinion.
As usual I needed time to get into the story, especially since Castle of Lies is one that involves an entirely new world and is told from the perspective of four different characters: Thelia, Parsifal, Bayled and Sapphire. We follow the characters as they are faced with an evil overtaking by elves who want to purge the city from all Magic. Unfortunately I never managed to immerse myself completely. A multitude of different plots and ruses were wound together and there was too much going on at the same time. It seemed overly complicated in setup, but lacked in depth. A very strange paradox of you ask me.
In my opinion this novel was trying too hard to resemble great series like Game of Thrones and Throne of Glass, but it never even got close to reaching that level. Especially since two of the characters that told the story were constantly in the same place. This added only confusion as to who was speaking at the time, especially with so many changes in point of view. Additionally, none of the characters got enough page time to truly develop them properly. This left them flat and cliché and made the story unimaginative.
Finally there was the involvement of the elf Sapphire, who was constantly referred to as ‘them’ instead of ‘him’ or ‘her’. Apparently, in a strange reference to gender neutrality, this elf never choose whether it was male or female and therefore had to be referred to as ‘them’. It was very difficult to wrap my mind around the fact that it was still just one person, not more as the plural ‘them’ would suggest. Also, why the strange love triangle between Thelia, Parsifal and Sapphire? Completely unnecessary.
This story could have been great, unfortunately it wasn’t in my opinion.