A review by kylosten
Five Broken Blades by Mai Corland

adventurous fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

I think having so many character POVs made having fully fleshed out characters hard with the shorter book length. The MCs had clear motivations for what they were doing but they were a bit 2 dimensional. And since each character was immediately paired off with someone it fell into the insta-love trope almost immediately with all of them (with angst and denial in most cases).
Vibes between all of them were a little like characters from Knives Out where they all have to work together while not necessarily liking each other and never fully trusting one another.
Also vibes of Mistborn where it's a group of people who would ordinarily not ever work together doing it to take down a god king. Don't expect the heavy world building or very fleshed out characters from Mistborn or you'll probably be disappointed. 
Book didn't really grab me until maybe 25% in and characters aren't fully introduced to each other til almost 50% in.
Overall it was and enjoyable light fantasy but I'd love to see more developed characters in future books.
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