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adventurous
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I received an e-ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and Angry Robot in exchange for a review.
I was ready to give this book a 4-star rating pretty soon after I started reading it just for the worldbuilding alone. I'm not sure what this says about the kind of reads I've been completing recently but I do have to say that having an interesting and immersive world is always one of the best ways to get me into a book. However, that's never enough. By the time I got to the end of the book and started thinking more about what I read, the cracks started to show.
Right from the get-go, I think that labelling this book as an adult fantasy is what causes the disconnect for me as a reader. For one thing, the main character acts very much like a teenager despite the crimes that have been pinned on her and the burdens she carries. The violence is quite graphic, so perhaps that's why. However, I think it's still quite reasonable considering that the magic is based on power coming from one's own blood. There are depictions of sex but those seemed so forced and came out of left field for me. The romances she gets entangled in are so extraneous to me, especially because much of the feelings there were developed off the page.
In fact, the same can be said for many other things, such as part of the action, why Shade was so feared as the Black Witch, everything of her past that seemed to have made her who she was. The pacing of the book is middling, with things happening to push things along, but it's all to make the plot progress, not due to any conscious choice of the characters. There's even a part where Shade says the sacrifice she needs to make to raise her Veil is too great that she can't pay it. But she'll still do it. And I hated that, thanks.
The characters in the book are so one-dimensional, often taking one aspect and turning it extreme. This aspect makes it much harder to relate to the characters and you need to invest yourself into the overall point of the book, the raising of a new Veil, to push through to the conclusion. The story also makes it seem like we're being set up for a full and expansive series, yet Obsidian is meant to be a standalone. Even the worldbuilding reflects this, as well as the ending of the book.
Definitely read the book if you want to discover a new world and be swept away from your problems by reading about someone else's. This is an entertaining and adventurous book that will give you some fun. There are so many aspects to the world that you can learn about and it never really feels enough. It's really hard to put down the book once you pick it up because there are so many things that keep you coming back for more. Still, I wish we did get more--more plot, more action, more nuance--because the worldbuilding really deserves it.
I was ready to give this book a 4-star rating pretty soon after I started reading it just for the worldbuilding alone. I'm not sure what this says about the kind of reads I've been completing recently but I do have to say that having an interesting and immersive world is always one of the best ways to get me into a book. However, that's never enough. By the time I got to the end of the book and started thinking more about what I read, the cracks started to show.
Right from the get-go, I think that labelling this book as an adult fantasy is what causes the disconnect for me as a reader. For one thing, the main character acts very much like a teenager despite the crimes that have been pinned on her and the burdens she carries. The violence is quite graphic, so perhaps that's why. However, I think it's still quite reasonable considering that the magic is based on power coming from one's own blood. There are depictions of sex but those seemed so forced and came out of left field for me. The romances she gets entangled in are so extraneous to me, especially because much of the feelings there were developed off the page.
In fact, the same can be said for many other things, such as part of the action, why Shade was so feared as the Black Witch, everything of her past that seemed to have made her who she was. The pacing of the book is middling, with things happening to push things along, but it's all to make the plot progress, not due to any conscious choice of the characters. There's even a part where Shade says the sacrifice she needs to make to raise her Veil is too great that she can't pay it. But she'll still do it. And I hated that, thanks.
The characters in the book are so one-dimensional, often taking one aspect and turning it extreme. This aspect makes it much harder to relate to the characters and you need to invest yourself into the overall point of the book, the raising of a new Veil, to push through to the conclusion. The story also makes it seem like we're being set up for a full and expansive series, yet Obsidian is meant to be a standalone. Even the worldbuilding reflects this, as well as the ending of the book.
Definitely read the book if you want to discover a new world and be swept away from your problems by reading about someone else's. This is an entertaining and adventurous book that will give you some fun. There are so many aspects to the world that you can learn about and it never really feels enough. It's really hard to put down the book once you pick it up because there are so many things that keep you coming back for more. Still, I wish we did get more--more plot, more action, more nuance--because the worldbuilding really deserves it.