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A review by linguisticali
Ascension by S.T. Gibson
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
3.5
I received a digital ARC from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I enjoyed reading this, although Rhys is arguably the least likeable of the main trio, so a Rhys-centric book is hard work at times. It's tough to spend a lot of time in his head and watch him make so many bad decisions. That said, I appreciated his character growth over the course of the book. I would have liked to see more progression in the exploration of power exchange, but hopefully we'll get more of that in the future.
If I'm going to continue with this series (and, look, I am), I need to accept that the plot is always going to be secondary to the relationships. I really like the portrayal of unconventional relationship structures and how the characters navigate them - it's genuinely refreshing to have main characters negotiating polyamory and its complexities in a way that feels realistic - but they do spend a lot of time doing that while the plot loosely unfolds in the background and then gets rapidly resolved near the end.
One thing I can't get over is how young these characters are. Maybe I'm just ancient, but a lot of the institutional power stuff would feel more convincing to me if these characters were like... 10 to 15 years older. The way Max is treated as being "older" when he's only 6 years older than David was especially odd to me.At one stage I went back and double checked how old the book said he was when they met, because his age was brought up so often that I thought I must have misread it the first time. Like sure, 6 years that's a big gap when one of you is 16 and the other is 22, but they weren't together then?? David is 30 now??
Moira is, obviously, the best character, so I'm looking forward to (I assume) a Moira-focused book 3. Her relationship with David is a highlight within the overall relationship dynamic, and I look forward to seeing how that keeps evolving. I'm a little nervous about the religious element but I would be very surprised if this queer polyamorous magic series turned into Christian propaganda, so I'll reserve judgment for now.
I enjoyed reading this, although Rhys is arguably the least likeable of the main trio, so a Rhys-centric book is hard work at times. It's tough to spend a lot of time in his head and watch him make so many bad decisions. That said, I appreciated his character growth over the course of the book. I would have liked to see more progression in the exploration of power exchange, but hopefully we'll get more of that in the future.
If I'm going to continue with this series (and, look, I am), I need to accept that the plot is always going to be secondary to the relationships. I really like the portrayal of unconventional relationship structures and how the characters navigate them - it's genuinely refreshing to have main characters negotiating polyamory and its complexities in a way that feels realistic - but they do spend a lot of time doing that while the plot loosely unfolds in the background and then gets rapidly resolved near the end.
One thing I can't get over is how young these characters are. Maybe I'm just ancient, but a lot of the institutional power stuff would feel more convincing to me if these characters were like... 10 to 15 years older. The way Max is treated as being "older" when he's only 6 years older than David was especially odd to me.
Moira is, obviously, the best character, so I'm looking forward to (I assume) a Moira-focused book 3. Her relationship with David is a highlight within the overall relationship dynamic, and I look forward to seeing how that keeps evolving. I'm a little nervous about the religious element but I would be very surprised if this queer polyamorous magic series turned into Christian propaganda, so I'll reserve judgment for now.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Alcoholism, Self harm