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A review by books_and_cocktails_afterhours
The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett
5.0
I have made an executive decision of making my his one my first five star read of this year. Any book that keeps me up until almost 3AM on a week night more than deserves the status!
The Tainted Cup is an excellent detective mystery novel set in a fantasy immersive world. It is the perfect mix between Attack on Titan with Sherlock Holmes, a combination that I never imagined it would work but it does, brilliantly.
The characterization, world building, and humor made this a unique and entertaining read that kept me hooked until the end. And even beyond, if there was a continuation available right away.
Something that, for me, deserves some relevance: The existence and acceptance of neurodivergence, queerness and/or just being different is flawlessly incorporated. It’s not loud, it’s not too much, it is just there without drawing undue attention to it.
My favorite character, and the one who left me with more open questions, is Ana. She is brilliant, full of mystery and in a society that is unnaturally enhanced, she doesn’t lose track of what it means to be human:
”The person an enhancement is paired with is just as important as what enhancement they get. And we get some say in what kind of person we are, Din. We do not pop out of a mold. We change. We selfassemble."
I’m very curious to how this series will continue. In this book, the murder mystery took a main role while the fantasy side of the story mostly functions as a backdrop of the plot. We only get leviathans from afar. I can’t wait for further development of this world and to see where the main characters end up.
Thank you very much Hodder & Stoughton and NetGallery for providing me this ARC.
The Tainted Cup is an excellent detective mystery novel set in a fantasy immersive world. It is the perfect mix between Attack on Titan with Sherlock Holmes, a combination that I never imagined it would work but it does, brilliantly.
The characterization, world building, and humor made this a unique and entertaining read that kept me hooked until the end. And even beyond, if there was a continuation available right away.
Something that, for me, deserves some relevance: The existence and acceptance of neurodivergence, queerness and/or just being different is flawlessly incorporated. It’s not loud, it’s not too much, it is just there without drawing undue attention to it.
My favorite character, and the one who left me with more open questions, is Ana. She is brilliant, full of mystery and in a society that is unnaturally enhanced, she doesn’t lose track of what it means to be human:
”The person an enhancement is paired with is just as important as what enhancement they get. And we get some say in what kind of person we are, Din. We do not pop out of a mold. We change. We selfassemble."
I’m very curious to how this series will continue. In this book, the murder mystery took a main role while the fantasy side of the story mostly functions as a backdrop of the plot. We only get leviathans from afar. I can’t wait for further development of this world and to see where the main characters end up.
Thank you very much Hodder & Stoughton and NetGallery for providing me this ARC.