garrettcz's reviews
363 reviews

Spoiler-free part of my review:

This was a massive bummer for me. I loved the first one, and though I didn't like the second one as much, I still enjoyed it. This one fell very flat for me. Most of the book was a boring, annoying slog that I can't say I enjoyed, and I found myself really wanting it to be over, so I rushed through the entire second half in a day just to get it over with. Many parts of this book are extremely repetitive and irritating, with a lot of the author telling not showing. While I liked parts of the ending, it felt very rushed and rapid-fire with a ton of exposition.

3/5 Stars.

Spoiler-laden part of my review:

Personally, I hated the time jump between the second and third books. It made the story feel very disconnected and the characters felt disjointed from where they ended in the last book. I think it derailed many of the characters' arcs, especially Sand's. She went from having a small community of constructs she cared deeply for, and then this book starts with them all being gone, which then made a lot of her motivations seem out of character.

So much of this book focuses on Ragan, who is hands down the worst, most one-dimensional character in this series. I did like the heel-face turn for Sand, but it was very predictable and dragged out. There was entirely too much of a focus on the romance subplots, including a ton of time spent on an unnecessary one between Ragan and Sand that I hated every second of.

I think my main qualm with this trilogy is that the first book sets up one of the most unique magic systems I've ever seen, which is the titular bone shard magic. It is a hugely important part of the first book, and we get lots of details about it, with several plot points centered around how Lin goes about manipulating the shards and constructs. This was easily (other than Mephi) my favorite aspect of the first book. I couldn't wait to learn more about the system and see how Lin progresses in her mastery of this strange, disturbing magic.

Instead, over the next two books we get precious little bone shard magic, and no further mastery of it, as its importance is more or less supplanted by a second kind of magic: a boring, run-of-the-mill system involving the manipulation of classical elements (although lacking fire manipulation). These kinds of magic systems have been done to death and there was nothing special or unique about this one, other than the user needing to bond magical creatures called ossalen to gain access to the powers. I couldn't have cared less about this magic system and think the author should have focused on different shard-based systems instead. The bone shard magic is unique and cool, and she did a wonderful job of making it interesting in the first book, which she then more or less threw away in the sequels.

3/5 Stars, only because Mephi was still top-notch through all three books and was super fun to read about.

Shorefall by Robert Jackson Bennett

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adventurous dark emotional inspiring tense fast-paced