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A review by nicolemhewitt
Chainbreaker by Tara Sim
5.0
This review and many more can be found on my blog: Feed Your Fiction Addiction
Chainbreaker brings Sim’s magical steampunk worldbuilding to India, giving us a wider perspective on her imaginative world and sending us on a new and even more complicated adventure!
What Fed My Addiction:
India.
Somehow I started 2018 with two books set in India, a locale I haven’t read much about before. I’ll sadly admit that I knew nothing about India’s history going into this book, so I loved getting some background on the difficult relationship between England and India at that time in history and social norms at the time. (Sim talks in her notes about the historical basis of the book and how she deviates from it for her own alternate steampunk version, which I really appreciated). The book doesn’t delve deeply into this history because that’s not the main thrust of the story, but it’s a great introduction to the subject.
Conflict that isn’t black and white.
Speaking of India, I especially loved how Danny ponders and questions the right and wrong of it all—who are the villains in his life story and who are the heroes? He asks himself this in relation to the rebellion and also in terms of the clock spirits. Danny has had to question his relationship with Colton all along—he knows that they could be putting a town in danger with their love and he has to live with that every day. There are people who are trying to “fix” time (and the situation in India), but are they truly helping? At what cost? Morality is complicated, and Danny has to figure out where he stands.
Colton’s backstory.
We get to learn about Colton’s backstory and origins in this book, and these scenes are fabulous!
Daphne’s cultural voice. In this second book, we get Daphne’s POV (in addition to Colton and Danny’s). Her biggest struggle is the fact that she feels both connected and disconnected to India. She has a deep curiosity about the country because of her Indian heritage, but she doesn’t feel like she belongs there or that she could be accepted there. Knowing that Tara Sim is, herself, half-Indian makes this aspect of the story all the more engaging an realistic.
What Left Me Hungry for More:
Less Colton and Danny (together).
Since Danny and Colton are separated for pretty much this entire book, we miss out on some of the magic of the romance between them. This book wasn’t quite as emotionally compelling for me as the first one was, and I can’t help but think that this might have had something to do with it. (Though it could also be because the “villains” in this story are less personal as well.) I never quite connected to Daphne the way I did Danny and Colton, so her chapters didn’t pull me in as much.
So, while this second installment didn’t quite live up to my adoration of the first, it was still definitely an engaging and exciting story. And Sim set us up for the next book so well that I’m itching to know where it’s all headed! I give this book 4/5 Stars.
***Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. No other compensation was given and all opinions are my own.***
Chainbreaker brings Sim’s magical steampunk worldbuilding to India, giving us a wider perspective on her imaginative world and sending us on a new and even more complicated adventure!
What Fed My Addiction:
India.
Somehow I started 2018 with two books set in India, a locale I haven’t read much about before. I’ll sadly admit that I knew nothing about India’s history going into this book, so I loved getting some background on the difficult relationship between England and India at that time in history and social norms at the time. (Sim talks in her notes about the historical basis of the book and how she deviates from it for her own alternate steampunk version, which I really appreciated). The book doesn’t delve deeply into this history because that’s not the main thrust of the story, but it’s a great introduction to the subject.
Conflict that isn’t black and white.
Speaking of India, I especially loved how Danny ponders and questions the right and wrong of it all—who are the villains in his life story and who are the heroes? He asks himself this in relation to the rebellion and also in terms of the clock spirits. Danny has had to question his relationship with Colton all along—he knows that they could be putting a town in danger with their love and he has to live with that every day. There are people who are trying to “fix” time (and the situation in India), but are they truly helping? At what cost? Morality is complicated, and Danny has to figure out where he stands.
Colton’s backstory.
We get to learn about Colton’s backstory and origins in this book, and these scenes are fabulous!
Daphne’s cultural voice. In this second book, we get Daphne’s POV (in addition to Colton and Danny’s). Her biggest struggle is the fact that she feels both connected and disconnected to India. She has a deep curiosity about the country because of her Indian heritage, but she doesn’t feel like she belongs there or that she could be accepted there. Knowing that Tara Sim is, herself, half-Indian makes this aspect of the story all the more engaging an realistic.
What Left Me Hungry for More:
Less Colton and Danny (together).
Since Danny and Colton are separated for pretty much this entire book, we miss out on some of the magic of the romance between them. This book wasn’t quite as emotionally compelling for me as the first one was, and I can’t help but think that this might have had something to do with it. (Though it could also be because the “villains” in this story are less personal as well.) I never quite connected to Daphne the way I did Danny and Colton, so her chapters didn’t pull me in as much.
So, while this second installment didn’t quite live up to my adoration of the first, it was still definitely an engaging and exciting story. And Sim set us up for the next book so well that I’m itching to know where it’s all headed! I give this book 4/5 Stars.
***Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. No other compensation was given and all opinions are my own.***