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A review by brendalovesbooks
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
4.0
2nd time through: I felt pretty much the same as the first time I read it. There was a lot of extra world building, to the point that it felt distracting. I didn't have a problem with the timeline this time, though. I'm not sure why I had a hard time with it the first time I read, either. It's not that bad.
1st time reading:
I'm quite late to the party in reading this one, as it was published years ago, but it's been on my to-read list for so long that I finally put it on my list for the "Books to Read Before I Die" challenge. I wanted to get to it, and having it on my challenge list made me do it.
I've struggled with my feelings about this book, to the point where I don't quite know how to grade it. On the one hand, I really loved the plot. It was original and complex. And once I figured out that the timeline wasn't necessarily chronological, I stopped feeling quite so lost. But the fact that I was lost for a bit, trying to figure it out lessened my enjoyment a little bit. For nearly a whole chapter, I was trying to figure out if I, as a reader, had previously been tricked or if something else was going on. Maybe that was the author's intention. I don't know.
I also could have done without the endless descriptive details about every building, every bit of history, every single place the characters happened to be. I don't mind some details. It definitely adds to the story when you have them, but there are times when I really don't care, and I just want to get back to the meat of the story, so I end up skimming over paragraphs.
All in all, though, I did like Lies of Locke Lamora, and I will continue on with the series, even though I've heard the second isn't as good. I really liked the plot and the humor in the first, and we'll see how the second turns out. I would recommend this to fans of gritty fantasy (although there really is very little fantasy in this one), and to those who like a little intrigue in their stories.
1st time reading:
I'm quite late to the party in reading this one, as it was published years ago, but it's been on my to-read list for so long that I finally put it on my list for the "Books to Read Before I Die" challenge. I wanted to get to it, and having it on my challenge list made me do it.
I've struggled with my feelings about this book, to the point where I don't quite know how to grade it. On the one hand, I really loved the plot. It was original and complex. And once I figured out that the timeline wasn't necessarily chronological, I stopped feeling quite so lost. But the fact that I was lost for a bit, trying to figure it out lessened my enjoyment a little bit. For nearly a whole chapter, I was trying to figure out if I, as a reader, had previously been tricked or if something else was going on. Maybe that was the author's intention. I don't know.
I also could have done without the endless descriptive details about every building, every bit of history, every single place the characters happened to be. I don't mind some details. It definitely adds to the story when you have them, but there are times when I really don't care, and I just want to get back to the meat of the story, so I end up skimming over paragraphs.
All in all, though, I did like Lies of Locke Lamora, and I will continue on with the series, even though I've heard the second isn't as good. I really liked the plot and the humor in the first, and we'll see how the second turns out. I would recommend this to fans of gritty fantasy (although there really is very little fantasy in this one), and to those who like a little intrigue in their stories.