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A review by micareads123
The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez
adventurous
challenging
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Outstanding. This book is in a league of its own and has raised the bar for adult fantasy storytelling (for me). I think it’s safe to say it’s one of the best-crafted books I’ve ever read. It is a crime that it was overlooked for all of the awards last year.
The prose is phenomenal, almost poetic. Jimenez has undeniable talent, and his style is so incredibly unique. He gives readers only the amount of information they need to follow the story, nothing more. And not only does the author trust the reader to read the book with an open mind, he trusts that the reader trusts him to pull everything together in the end. The writing demands your full attention, but the payoff at the end is well worth the time it takes to read it.
The book feels like a dream, and that’s because it is one. While the majority of the narrative is told in the form of a performance in the Inverted Theatre, in a dream dimension, the story flows seamlessly back and forth through time, the author slowly weaving an expansive and sweeping tapestry. The author also expertly shifts between the first, second and third person, from paragraph to paragraph, even sentence to sentence. It’s as if the author looked at the chaos of juggling all three perspectives and said, challenge accepted. And he delivered.
The story explores themes of oral storytelling traditions, honouring one’s ancestors, colonization, cultural assimilation, war and, above all, love and intimacy. And it took me through so many emotions: awe, love, heartbreak, disgust. It turned my stomach and it made me laugh out loud on several occasions. It gave me sad and happy tears.
You get to see the two protagonists at their ugliest and in their most joyful moments, and by the end of the book, it feels as if you have spent a lifetime with them.
I don’t think this is a book for everyone. It is a book for readers who like to have their limits challenged or who want to read something very unlike anything they’ve read before. I would recommend it to fans of the Locked Tomb and Broken Earth trilogies.
Make sure to check CWs for this one!
The prose is phenomenal, almost poetic. Jimenez has undeniable talent, and his style is so incredibly unique. He gives readers only the amount of information they need to follow the story, nothing more. And not only does the author trust the reader to read the book with an open mind, he trusts that the reader trusts him to pull everything together in the end. The writing demands your full attention, but the payoff at the end is well worth the time it takes to read it.
The book feels like a dream, and that’s because it is one. While the majority of the narrative is told in the form of a performance in the Inverted Theatre, in a dream dimension, the story flows seamlessly back and forth through time, the author slowly weaving an expansive and sweeping tapestry. The author also expertly shifts between the first, second and third person, from paragraph to paragraph, even sentence to sentence. It’s as if the author looked at the chaos of juggling all three perspectives and said, challenge accepted. And he delivered.
The story explores themes of oral storytelling traditions, honouring one’s ancestors, colonization, cultural assimilation, war and, above all, love and intimacy. And it took me through so many emotions: awe, love, heartbreak, disgust. It turned my stomach and it made me laugh out loud on several occasions. It gave me sad and happy tears.
You get to see the two protagonists at their ugliest and in their most joyful moments, and by the end of the book, it feels as if you have spent a lifetime with them.
I don’t think this is a book for everyone. It is a book for readers who like to have their limits challenged or who want to read something very unlike anything they’ve read before. I would recommend it to fans of the Locked Tomb and Broken Earth trilogies.
Make sure to check CWs for this one!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Cannibalism
Moderate: Ableism