mrtvavrana's reviews
832 reviews

The Eternal Ones by Namina Forna

adventurous emotional inspiring slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

The final book in the Deathless trilogy takes us on the final adventures with Deka and her friends. 

I really liked The Gilded Ones, but The Merciless Ones proved to be disappointing. I had some hope left for The Eternal Ones, and while it definitely picked up, it was not enough to make me love it. 

Overall, I have to say I loved Deka's storyline.

Starting out as a scared little girl, she slowly became a warrior, a leader, a daughter of the goddesses, and now she is about to fulfil her fate and become a god herself. I think we need more books like this, books that empower and show girls and women that they can be anything. I liked that Deka´s growth was steady. I also really appreciate that she was not hurt and tortured in order to advance a man´s story (looking at you, SJM). 

Similarly to The Merciless Ones, the plot was very predictable and slow. There were some moments when I considered pausing the book. For the longest time it felt like nothing was happening, and then out of nowhere—the final battle is in full swing. 

This book has brought us even more queer, non-binary, intersex, (?) and transgender (I think?) characters, which I genuinely found weird and a bit overwhelming. Somebody was coming out every other chapter. It was so chaotic and hard to follow. Not to mention all the main characters stayed cishet up until the end. 

One thing that really bugged me while I was reading The Merciless Ones was how much space the romance between Deka and Keita takes. This, again, did not change a bit. The romance just felt like a filler because the author needed to hit a word count. We also got more romance between other characters. 

I think that despite how powerful the story seemed, the ending did not do it any justice. It was pretty underwhelming, and I found it lacking in so many ways.

I also did not understand why Keita and White Hands of all people chose to become gods; it went completely against everything they believed and stood for./spoiler> 

Deka is still insufferable and annoying until the end. The whole time I kept wondering where that incredible heroine disappeared to. 

Overall, I think this was a decent read. It was fast and fun, and the characters were lovable (for the most part), but I think the first book set the bar too high, and I set my hopes too high, and my expectations were not met. 

The Merciless Ones by Namina Forna

adventurous challenging emotional slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

I think I was too excited about the first book, as The Merciless Ones proved to be a bit disappointing.
 
 The events of this book take place six months after the end of The Gilded Ones. The beginning is quite strong, but then things slowly fall apart.
 
 The main thing I was praising in book one—time skips when nothing interesting happens—kind of dropped. We see many more meaningless interactions, and the story moves too slowly. The book lacks the action that I loved so much in the first book.
 
 This book is definitely more characteristically young adult—some of the dialogues and interactions are very, very childish. This is kind of upsetting, as I was so excited about the lack of this childishness in The Gilded Ones.
 
 My biggest disappointment, though, is how strongly this book is orientated on romance. My biggest fear came true, unfortunately.
 
 We did get some more queer representation, and there is also a non-binary character introduced. I absolutely hated that one of the queer people is a gay boy who was horrifically tortured. The whole time I was thinking about why do we even need to torture the gays? It's fantasy. Why can’t people just not get tortured for being gay? And not to mention, this torture is only described once and does not bring anything to the story…
 
 Somehow, Deka becomes truly annoying during this book. It was really hard to witness it. More so since she was a total badass in the previous book. I also really disliked how her friends just went with whatever she wanted. No questions asked.
 
 Many new things we encountered were explained either poorly or not at all. The plot was predictable; I do not think there was a single surprise. At times, though, the “big twists” were out of place and so random. They did not fit with the story or the characters.
 
 While I did not outright hate The Merciless Ones, I definitely did not like it and even considered not finishing. I am so upset that almost every single thing I enjoyed in the first book was destroyed in one way or another. It lacked the depth and beauty of the world Namina Forna crafted in The Gilded Ones. 

The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna

adventurous challenging funny lighthearted fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

The Gilded Ones is the first book in the Deathless trilogy. It follows a girl named Deka and her friends throughout their lives and adventures. 

The book started off really strong; I was in awe of the beautiful storytelling and descriptions. I felt like this book was not entirely like a classic young adult novel; it did not seem as childish (character- and dialogue-wise), and I loved how everything was explained. I´d say it was quite detailed and easily understandable—Deka´s abilities and skills were developed over time and with training. There were some short time skips that helped the story move along a little faster, and they gave Deka time to master her skills. 

I was genuinely surprised by how much I loved Deka—the young adult heroines are usually very insufferable, and I do not like them. 

This novel also deals with some extremely heavy topics (like rape, assault, misogyny, murder, torture, etc.) and contains graphic descriptions (mostly of murder). I think the author described and talked about these topics on a very appropriate level, and I truly appreciate it. I felt the same about the way sex was discussed, but I would have appreciated it more if that topic was avoided entirely. 

I had so many theories about Deka and White Hands throughout the book. I have to say that I was genuinely surprised with where the story was going and how the events played out on multiple occasions. Unfortunately, though, some of these “big reveals” lacked—they seemed quite out of place and did not fit with the story entirely. 

Another thing I was not really on board with was the relationship between Deka and Keita turning romantic towards the end of the book. I do not like romance in young adult books and series, as they tend to take up too much space, and they are almost never done well. The authors tend to completely switch the characters´ personalities once they're in love, and I find that incredibly annoying. Hopefully it will not be the case in Deathless. 

All that being said, I think this was a very promising beginning of a trilogy. I honestly can't wait to read the rest! 

Death in her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I love Ottessa Moshfegh, and I am always quite anxious to read a new book of hers. It is partly because of the excitement and partly out of fear that I will not enjoy the book. 

For some reason Moshfegh's books are really hard to review for me—I always struggle to express myself and to find the right words; I can't quite explain it. 

Death In Her Hands follows a 72-year-old woman called Vesta and her dog Charlie. Vesta finds a mysterious note in the woods near her cabin. The note says: Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body. The note sends Vesta on an adventure to find out what really happened. Unfortunately, all is not what it seems—solving the mystery of Magda´s death is not the book´s main goal. 

The mystery, you see, is not real. Vesta makes up the entire story, casting different people from a nearby town into specific roles she designed. As the story and the “mystery” within move, we see Vesta slowly descending into madness. Although it is not slow. In fact, the book takes place only over a couple of days. 

I thought that by now I was used to how dark and heavy Moshfegh's novels were, but I was genuinely surprised at some points. I love how she crafts her books—you are honestly never sure what is truly going on or what will happen. While Death In Her Hands was definitely more dull and less eventful, I think it beautifully executes what an unreliable narrator should be like. 

I definitely did not like this book as much as Lapvona or My Year of Rest and Relaxation, but I genuinely cannot get enough of the unlikeable female characters Moshfegh writes about. And I also think many people do not understand that that is the entire point. 

Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny

adventurous informative mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

 

Lord of Light is utter chaos. It´s really heavy on information, religion (dominantly Hinduism), and talking. It also lacks action.

This novel is about “gods”—advanced humans who are able to reincarnate their souls using new bodies. They are divided into two factions: one wants humanity to advance, and the other is purposefully halting humanity's progress so they still get worshiped.

The book is extremely slow to get going, and you really need to pay attention to detail and write information down to fully grasp what is happening and who is who.

I mostly struggled with the characters—many of the gods have multiple names, and some of the names are just a title that gets passed to a different character later in the story.

While, at first glance, this book only has a few chapters, they are in fact different and separate stories. They are (more or less) only connected by the characters, which was extremely confusing to me, as I was expecting something different entirely.

I also had to consult the internet multiple times as I had no clue what was going on half the time. I think that without looking the additional information up, I would have despised this book completely.

Lord of Light also deals with topics such as classism, colonialism, and even racism (between different species). But unfortunately a lot of it gets lost between the pages.

Honestly, the sole reason I have picked up and read this book was that I thought a stand-alone by Zelazny would be easier to digest than The Amber Chronicles. Lord of Light has also been named one of the best sci-fi novels of all time, and it won a Hugo award. Unfortunately, it did not meet my expectation. 

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

4.0

The Vikings by Kenneth W. Harl

4.0

Sun Tzu: The Art of War by Sun Tzu

3.0

The Demon in the Wood by Leigh Bardugo

3.0

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

3.0