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olawunmi 's review for:
A Reaper at the Gates
by Sabaa Tahir
I cared little to nothing about anything in this book.
I can feel the slight shift in writing style compared to the last 2 books and I don’t hate it but the content itself in this book did not keep me engaged whatsoever. I didn’t care about anything or anyone. Not even the characters I had connected with from the previous books.
We spent so long establishing and building up to Darin in the last 2 books and working for so long to save him only for him to appear in 20% of this book and be basic af. I looked forward to his interactions with Laia and to see how their relationship had shifted since his time in prison but it was only explored for like 1 page. 1 fight that didn’t even have a satisfying payoff at the end.
Helene (oh, I’m sorry, bLoOd sHrIkE) wasn’t a character I particularly loved in the first 2 books but I really respected and connected with her as a character. But in this book, she mostly just annoyed me to no end and I found myself skipping paragraphs and sometimes even pages in her chapters. She seemed dumbed down and volatile and mostly uninteresting.
Elias’s chapters were interesting but very repetitive. As much as I didn’t enjoy the outcome of his arc at the end, it was at least something and it satisfied me to see one thing come out of 400+ pages of words.
Avitas Harper was a character I truly enjoyed and was a redeeming part of this book for me. I wish we got to spend more time with him.
This book brought in so many magical elements and world-building plot points that had never been established in the first 2 books. I felt blindsided when things like prophecies and brooding wars were sprung on me from out of nowhere. Things like that are too important to only now be established. Antium politics, the houses and its paters, the Khana-whatever-they-were-called, the Mariners, that city Musa was from; so many world-building plot points that should have warranted at the very least one paragraph in the earlier books just sprung out of nowhere. It makes it seem cheap and I had zero interest or connection to them. I found it hard to care or believe anything outside of the scholars, the tribesmen, and the empire because I’d never heard about anything outside of the scholars, the tribesmen, and the empire for 2 whole books.
The fact that this book had aspects of things I enjoy in fantasy (politics, war, bat shit crazy magic) but still managed to be incredibly boring to me is actually quite impressive.
I can feel the slight shift in writing style compared to the last 2 books and I don’t hate it but the content itself in this book did not keep me engaged whatsoever. I didn’t care about anything or anyone. Not even the characters I had connected with from the previous books.
We spent so long establishing and building up to Darin in the last 2 books and working for so long to save him only for him to appear in 20% of this book and be basic af. I looked forward to his interactions with Laia and to see how their relationship had shifted since his time in prison but it was only explored for like 1 page. 1 fight that didn’t even have a satisfying payoff at the end.
Helene (oh, I’m sorry, bLoOd sHrIkE) wasn’t a character I particularly loved in the first 2 books but I really respected and connected with her as a character. But in this book, she mostly just annoyed me to no end and I found myself skipping paragraphs and sometimes even pages in her chapters. She seemed dumbed down and volatile and mostly uninteresting.
Elias’s chapters were interesting but very repetitive. As much as I didn’t enjoy the outcome of his arc at the end, it was at least something and it satisfied me to see one thing come out of 400+ pages of words.
Avitas Harper was a character I truly enjoyed and was a redeeming part of this book for me. I wish we got to spend more time with him.
This book brought in so many magical elements and world-building plot points that had never been established in the first 2 books. I felt blindsided when things like prophecies and brooding wars were sprung on me from out of nowhere. Things like that are too important to only now be established. Antium politics, the houses and its paters, the Khana-whatever-they-were-called, the Mariners, that city Musa was from; so many world-building plot points that should have warranted at the very least one paragraph in the earlier books just sprung out of nowhere. It makes it seem cheap and I had zero interest or connection to them. I found it hard to care or believe anything outside of the scholars, the tribesmen, and the empire because I’d never heard about anything outside of the scholars, the tribesmen, and the empire for 2 whole books.
The fact that this book had aspects of things I enjoy in fantasy (politics, war, bat shit crazy magic) but still managed to be incredibly boring to me is actually quite impressive.