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A review by talon1010
The Phoenix Empress by K. Arsenault Rivera
5.0
WOW. There were moments where I wondered if, between this and Tiger's Daughter, Rivera only had one trick. Even if that were true, she nailed it twice.
For less cloudy and spoiling reviews, the book was absolutely excellent. At first and later on, there were other stories I hoped we may hear, but the story we did did not suffer for its lack. The mastery of time and perspective were, if anything, upgraded from their use in the previous book. Where Tiger's Daughter made use of them in order to manipulate the narrative, each facet in this book spoke to the vast and significant themes: marriage, war, personhood and autonomy, responsibility, language....
I'd especially emphasize that the manipulation and mastery over character development, relationships, and nature hit really hard for me. As Shefali and Shizuka evolve as people, they do so as gods, too, and neither is separate from the other, even when it is. Somehow, Rivera does something I normally detest-- an extremely soft, ill-defined world and magic-- and makes it work like I've never seen. I caught myself several times accounting for what exactly a character could or could not do, magically, and even when I couldn't come up with an answer, or when I didn't expect something that did happen, it didn't throw me off. Learn as I might about how to and to not use magic to solve problems or characterize, Rivera breaks the molds and still shines.
For less cloudy and spoiling reviews, the book was absolutely excellent. At first and later on, there were other stories I hoped we may hear, but the story we did did not suffer for its lack. The mastery of time and perspective were, if anything, upgraded from their use in the previous book. Where Tiger's Daughter made use of them in order to manipulate the narrative, each facet in this book spoke to the vast and significant themes: marriage, war, personhood and autonomy, responsibility, language....
I'd especially emphasize that the manipulation and mastery over character development, relationships, and nature hit really hard for me. As Shefali and Shizuka evolve as people, they do so as gods, too, and neither is separate from the other, even when it is. Somehow, Rivera does something I normally detest-- an extremely soft, ill-defined world and magic-- and makes it work like I've never seen. I caught myself several times accounting for what exactly a character could or could not do, magically, and even when I couldn't come up with an answer, or when I didn't expect something that did happen, it didn't throw me off. Learn as I might about how to and to not use magic to solve problems or characterize, Rivera breaks the molds and still shines.