A review by starrysteph
The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

OH! Oh.

The Spear Cuts Through Water was an absolutely mesmerizing joy. It’s a love story between two young men, but it’s also a love letter to oral storytelling and myth-making.

It’s a beautifully constructed story that pushed boundaries & made me delight in fantasy and imagination once again. I needed this book at this time. 

“The stories are everywhere, you cannot avoid them. Every day you tell a story to yourself; the details of your day become a part of your myth.”

The plot - in broad strokes - is about two warriors, both with complicated, dark pasts. Jun is a royal guard who is weighed down by the guilt of his past violence, and Keema is an outcast looking for a community to belong to. Their country is under a brutal rule, thanks to a ruthless emperor and his sons, the Three Terrors. These violent sons control the land with powers extracted from an old Moon god … who also happens to be their mother.

But when that god is freed? She ends up on an fantastical and dangerous five-day journey with the two young warriors, hoping to change the country forever and submit herself to freedom.

And watching this all unfold are a group of mortal souls in the Inverted Theater. They’re each brought here (from across space and time) through a dream to witness one performance. It’s a performance that is meant for them exactly in that moment, but also one that they’ll never remember again once they wake.

The Spear Cuts Through Water is a love story about two souls forging their way through violence and finding each other. It’s an exploration of legacy, fate, dedication, and how stories connect us all.

The writing is communal. It swirls between narrative perspectives - sometimes even switching from sentence to sentence - and it WORKED. Brilliantly. You are challenged to hold multiple planes of space and time in your hands at once. It may require a bit of patience, but once you submit to the rhythm, you can almost hear the voices aloud, piping in to share their emotions, desires, and last breaths. 

It really is a performance - we as readers are IN the Inverted Theater. It’s folkloric and captivating, lush and haunting, and gory and sad. It’s a lyrical tapestry and it is raw collective storytelling. It’s not exactly a charming view of humanity, but it shows how love (in all forms) and connection make life worthwhile. 

I cared so deeply about these characters. I cared so deeply about these SINGLE SENTENCE ASIDES. I was in this book and on this journey with my entire being. 

A quick note to expand upon the below content warnings: this book involves ritualistic cannibalism and a lot of gore. 

CW: murder, death (parent/child), body horror, cannibalism, gore, decapitation, war, animal cruelty/death, ableism, torture, slavery, suicide, vomit, excrement

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