A review by ailsaod
The Black Tides of Heaven by Neon Yang

adventurous emotional hopeful medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

Not sure what to think about this book. It is very short but despite this it took me ages to read because there is just too much happening?? We never get a solid feel for who our characters are because they are aging so quickly. I spent half of the book thinking that with each new timeskip would be the actual beginning of the story and the prior chapters were just context but it just never stopped. I have no idea who any one the main characters are or their motivations and the romantic relationships were very much insta-love. Is this book about being taken for granted? Is it about having to find your own way? Is it about fate? Evil dictators? I have no idea. For 150 pages things just sort of happened and the most frustrating part is is that the author was clearly saying something here!

The same goes for the worldbuilding. The stuff with slackcraft is never explained - though admittedly I would say this aspect of the book suffers the least from this treatment - and the treatment of gender was interesting but was overshadowed by everything else to the point that I just wanted to know more.

I probably won't be continuing with this series as I found it frustrating and unsatisfying. 
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