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storyorc's reviews
583 reviews
Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett
adventurous
funny
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
A DELIGHT. Pratchett makes an art of subverting expectations not just in the narrative but at a sentence level. The setting is an enthralling exercise in contradiction; its common people act like your neighbours but there's dragons in the air and the city feels sprawling and alive yet every detail introduced pays off later. For a style with such flourish it hides an incredible economical skeleton.
What elevates this from amusing to making me want to pick up another Discworld novel is the moments of brutal insight on the nature of humanity and humanity at scale that Pratchett dots through his hijinks. Many I agree with, a few I don't, and some I hope to see expanded upon in his other works. The characters straddle the aspirational-relatable line wonderfully and all have a distinct set of traits. Except wit - very few get through the novel without delivering a few zingers. The worst thing about this book is that it makes you want to be that annoying friend who won't stop sharing quotes of what they're reading.
Wonse getting killed by luck of the narrative and the dragons flying away to spare the characters some of the messy fallout of doing things by the book felt like a slight cop-out to me but that could just be because I liked him despite the... everything. I was disappointed the Patrician regained control in the end since it's always nicer to have the little people vs the power rather than vs themselves but it probably would have been too glamourous and tidy for the tone if they'd defeated the power hierarchy as well as a dragon .
What elevates this from amusing to making me want to pick up another Discworld novel is the moments of brutal insight on the nature of humanity and humanity at scale that Pratchett dots through his hijinks. Many I agree with, a few I don't, and some I hope to see expanded upon in his other works. The characters straddle the aspirational-relatable line wonderfully and all have a distinct set of traits. Except wit - very few get through the novel without delivering a few zingers. The worst thing about this book is that it makes you want to be that annoying friend who won't stop sharing quotes of what they're reading.
Content Warnings
Minor: Transphobia
Transphobia is not explicit, just a few jokes based on a daughter having a penis or similar which speak for the time the book was written. Author is generally regarded as pro-trans on the whole.
The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
World like a Studio Ghibli dream, violence to make you wince, and characters who range from trying so hard to be better to monsters with oddly redeeming qualities. The experimental literary device of head hopping into bit-characters for a sentence or two of italics allows people from all strata of this society a voice and makes it feel so alive and extensive. It is one of many examples of how Jimenez infuses the story with empathy to give it depth; he doesn't demand that we excuse wrong-doing, only that we understand it.
The main two characters are exactly the messy and fun relationship needed to anchor such a surreal tale. The framing device of a modern-day emigrant watching the story as a play was atmospheric and provided some cool a-ha moments but might have felt more vital to someone with more similarities in their family history. I was always eager to return to our two heroes of myth.
The main two characters are exactly the messy and fun relationship needed to anchor such a surreal tale. The framing device of a modern-day emigrant watching the story as a play was atmospheric and provided some cool a-ha moments but might have felt more vital to someone with more similarities in their family history. I was always eager to return to our two heroes of myth.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: War, Child abuse, and Ableism
Minor: Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Sexism
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
A little slow in parts but was any other work of fiction in the 70s making an honest effort to imagine an anarchist society like this? Equal parts optimistim and realism, The Dispossessed explores how we might try to set up such a society and the pitfalls of human nature we would have to overcome.
Flashbacks to our main character, Shevek's life on his anarchic moon are as touching as they are fascinating, filled with imperfect but quite human characters who are really trying. Reading constantly that they work because they want to and that everything they do, they choose it, has the curious effect of making the reader feel they are in a dark little box watching the lid crack open bit by bit. In seeing our anarchists sacrifice for their society, we understand how they can trust that the same society will sacrifice them. The capitalist notion of freedom - "financial freedom", aka "fuck you money" - pales in comparison to a model of freedom where you can trust that you will be able to take what you need. By the end of the book, you've absorbed enough of their outlook to feel sickened by the capitalist planet Shevek visits instead of relieved by the familiar.
The anarchists still struggle with the power of peer pressure and environmental hardships from living on a barren moon. It is said repeatedly that anarchism is a process, not a destination - a constant vigilance and revolution against power. Their moon is no oasis yet you yearn to return along with Shevek.
(Not sure how this ties in yet but another motto of their movement's leader was that there is no journey without return. Thought it runs counter to the spirit of exploration we're used to, it is effective in instilling that yearning as well as presenting an interesting challenge to the ego of the explorer - why explore? Selfishly, or for home?)
Check content warnings of this review if sexual assault is a trigger.
Flashbacks to our main character, Shevek's life on his anarchic moon are as touching as they are fascinating, filled with imperfect but quite human characters who are really trying. Reading constantly that they work because they want to and that everything they do, they choose it, has the curious effect of making the reader feel they are in a dark little box watching the lid crack open bit by bit. In seeing our anarchists sacrifice for their society, we understand how they can trust that the same society will sacrifice them. The capitalist notion of freedom - "financial freedom", aka "fuck you money" - pales in comparison to a model of freedom where you can trust that you will be able to take what you need. By the end of the book, you've absorbed enough of their outlook to feel sickened by the capitalist planet Shevek visits instead of relieved by the familiar.
The anarchists still struggle with the power of peer pressure and environmental hardships from living on a barren moon. It is said repeatedly that anarchism is a process, not a destination - a constant vigilance and revolution against power. Their moon is no oasis yet you yearn to return along with Shevek.
(Not sure how this ties in yet but another motto of their movement's leader was that there is no journey without return. Thought it runs counter to the spirit of exploration we're used to, it is effective in instilling that yearning as well as presenting an interesting challenge to the ego of the explorer - why explore? Selfishly, or for home?)
Check content warnings of this review if sexual assault is a trigger.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault and Police brutality
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail
Shevek gets drunk and sexually assaults a woman at about 3/4 of the way through. Possibly to show how much the capitalist planet is affecting him? She is more annoyed than distressed but to avoid, just skip ahead to the next chapter when you read him getting drunk and accompanying a woman to her bedroom. All you need to know plotwise is that he got drunk, assaulted her in private, then threw up in public and was taken home.
Venom Vol. 1: Rex by Donny Cates
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Went into this thinking the Venom film + fandom were amping up the emotional bond between Eddie and Venom way up, left knowing the comics are right there with them. This volume is great at making you feel the violation whenever anything threatens to rip Venom away from Eddie. Their codependence is the beating heart of any good Venom run and this one knows it. I love how unguarded they are with each other; makes total sense for beings sharing a brain and body and it hurts all the more when they hurt each other. Also the creepy symbiote 'illness' and the lore around this volume's big bad was creepy and cool. Cates is a pro at juggling both the freaky alien lore and very human emotion sides needed for the character.
The Amazing Spider-Man: Kraven's Last Hunt by Mike Zeck, J.M. DeMatteis
adventurous
challenging
dark
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Difficult to follow Kraven's motivations but I loved his enthusiasm, eating a room full of spiders at the beginning to get into Peter's head. It goes to interesting, unexpected places. Spiderman also displays much more fear and sense of his own mortality than I'm used to, which was sobering in a way that fit this run's conclusion.
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Blew my expectations out of the water with how disappointing the characters were. Having heard about this book via dark academia, I was hoping for a slightly tighter If We Were Villains. What I got was a front row seat to the rot of self-delusion.
Tartt comes closest to stating her thesis when one character says "Beauty, unless she is wed to something more meaningful, is always superficial". Even beauty itself does not escape this empty romanticisation, from Julian and Henry's early exchange of "What is beauty?" "Terror." to the first sentence Richard ever learned in Greek being "χαλεπὰ τὰ καλά... Beauty is harsh". These sentiments are intriguing, but characters never posit an explanation of this juxtaposition or what it means for their lives. When pressed, Henry only remarks vacuously that "anything is grand if its done at a large enough scale".
Once crafted, these beautiful images serve as disguises: Francis admits that he "tend[s] to equate physical beauty with qualities with which it has absolutely nothing to do" while Richard writes of his own "fatal tendency to try to make interesting people good", and that "one of Julian's most attractive qualities is his inability to see anything in its true light ... maybe one of my most attractive qualities as well". Henry plants roses in the same garden that homes ferns he picked the day theykilled Bunny . Richard is capable of sober moments, once calling Bunny's murder a "selfish, basically evil act" and sometimes poking holes in Henry's 'logic', but by the end of the novel he is comfortably back at his delusion, romanticising Jacobean plays as "trapdoors to something beautiful and wicked that trickled beneath the surface of morality" . Since the beauty-hunting Richard narrates the tale, the entire book threatens to be such a trapdoor to the reader if they allow themselves to be swept up as he is; just look at the dark academia 'aesthetic'.
This friend group is also constantly abusing any substance they can get their hands on with a wantonness that betrays utter horror that they might have to be themselves for a while.
There is a vindictive joy in seeing the beautiful masks crack. For the reader, their morality comes into question with theBacchanalia confession wherein they dismiss the innocent, murdered farmer as no great intellect. Delusions of competence quickly follow as they fall apart in the aftermath of their crimes. Henry spends months on an improbable assassination-by-mushroom plan, only to admit in annoyance hours after murdering Bunny that he doesn't know how police investigations work. He also records the initial murder in a diary .
The characters are slower to see these cracks. Francis realises during theinvestigation "it's not that we're so smart, it's just that we don't look like we did it", Charles bemoans Henry being more worried "if Homer would make a better impression than Thomas Aquinas" while he diverts the cops' suspicions , and the book is almost over before Richard likens Henry and Charles fighting to "walking into the cockpit of a plane and finding the pilot and co-pilot passed out drunk". I feared Secret History would be rich kid apologia but they are out of touch to the point of absurdism. After accidentally killing the farmer , Henry has them perform a pig's blood cleansing ceremony . Camilla thinks it works.
Bunny is the only character who canspot a wavering mask early and consistently. Alchoholism, homosexuality, incest, Julian's selective blindness - all are proven astute, yet they're delivered insultingly enough to shock a court jester. Placing him in the role of truth-teller, usually reserved for a Holmsian savant or wide-eyed child, was a masterful stroke by Tartt to confer onto him both the competency to make him a threat and the innocence to prevent us from siding with his murderers comfortably.
Throughout the book, Camilla is an enigma beneath her beauty. Richard repeatedly describes her attractive features as "boyish" or "masculine", her emotions upon seeingCharles' disintegration surprise the entire cast, and her motive for being with Henry blurs from protection from Charles into love depending on when she's asked. She is never brought as low as the others (even Henry is cowed in confessing to Julian) so we never see her truly vulnerable, only superficially. Since Judy Poovey and Sophie Dearbold are genuine and scrutable, I take this masculine opacity, a mix of Charles and Henry's most alluring traits to Richard, to be the only way Richard knows to imbibe Camilla with the substance he imagines beneath her beauty.
Henry's greatest desire being "to live without thinking" is a cruel joke given his academic preoccupation with beautiful ideals.He claims to be living this way as part of a philosophical argument while hand-polishing the leaves of a rare rosebush. I can't think of a single instance of him acting on a whim. Furthermore, he speaks of his truly thoughtless acts with scorn, not appreciation, and his worst such mistake, letting Julian see the truth of Bunny's accusation letter, marks the beginning of his end. Henry is a hypocrite, calling death the "mother of beauty" yet also describing his "colourless" world before that night as "dead". He is Richard's snowstorm saviour and his friends' Corcoran tank but also the one who prompted them to two murders, then killed himself as a hasty sacrifice, complete with a declaration of love. His invigoration following the "most important night of [his] life" (read: the murder of an innocent) is not thanks to love or friends worth dying for, but the drama of violence - the opportunity to LARP a Greek tragedy. As Richard says of his motivation for suicide, "he felt the need to make a noble gesture".
Richard's inability to craft an entrancing mask, due to insecurities about his background, renders him forever the outsider.Henry assures him they found him mysterious, but even when this is shucked, he is often the last to learn things, he is excluded from their entangled sex lives, and he lives apart from them, on campus. Richard feels remorse and wretchedness over Bunny at various times long after the murder but only the thought that Henry had manipulated him into their group to serve as patsy makes him break out into a cold sweat immediately.
Consequently, the saddest part of the entire book to me isRichard getting shot. His neglectful childhood and all the little ways his wealthy friends thoughtlessly reduce him have been building for so long that the reader is practically gleeful when the bullet hits. Surely, finally, his friends will fuss over him now, but no. Charles shot him accidentally. No-one notices until he declares it and even then - "somehow, this did not elicit the dramatic response I expected" - there is literally not a single on-page reaction before the scene moves on and Henry's suicide steals the show. His most significant hospital visitor is the ghost of Henry he imagines. It pairs pity with the disgust we feel at his choice of friends and plants the uneasy suspicion that we might be just as weak in his shoes.
Overall, this is a book where everyone gets what they deserve but you aren't exactly happy about it. I love most of these characters as much as I loathe them; the only one I cannot excuse isJulian, who has the cleanest hands. More than anything, I'm reminded of the Great Gatsby, not just for its outsider narrator, but for its frustrated condemnation of these silver-spooned scions as "careless people". And to anyone who idealises this Bacchanalian nightmare of a friend group, just do shrooms like a normal college kid.
Finally, I only recommend the audiobook if you want to hear how the author intended sentence emphasis to fall. Although I grew to like the author's voice and accent, it takes a lot of adjusting to feel it belongs to Richard, and the Bunny and Julian voices could have come out of a pair of muppets.
Tartt comes closest to stating her thesis when one character says "Beauty, unless she is wed to something more meaningful, is always superficial". Even beauty itself does not escape this empty romanticisation, from Julian and Henry's early exchange of "What is beauty?" "Terror." to the first sentence Richard ever learned in Greek being "χαλεπὰ τὰ καλά... Beauty is harsh". These sentiments are intriguing, but characters never posit an explanation of this juxtaposition or what it means for their lives. When pressed, Henry only remarks vacuously that "anything is grand if its done at a large enough scale".
Once crafted, these beautiful images serve as disguises: Francis admits that he "tend[s] to equate physical beauty with qualities with which it has absolutely nothing to do" while Richard writes of his own "fatal tendency to try to make interesting people good", and that "one of Julian's most attractive qualities is his inability to see anything in its true light ... maybe one of my most attractive qualities as well". Henry plants roses in the same garden that homes ferns he picked the day they
This friend group is also constantly abusing any substance they can get their hands on with a wantonness that betrays utter horror that they might have to be themselves for a while.
There is a vindictive joy in seeing the beautiful masks crack. For the reader, their morality comes into question with the
The characters are slower to see these cracks. Francis realises during the
Bunny is the only character who can
Throughout the book, Camilla is an enigma beneath her beauty. Richard repeatedly describes her attractive features as "boyish" or "masculine", her emotions upon seeing
Henry's greatest desire being "to live without thinking" is a cruel joke given his academic preoccupation with beautiful ideals.
Richard's inability to craft an entrancing mask, due to insecurities about his background, renders him forever the outsider.
Consequently, the saddest part of the entire book to me is
Overall, this is a book where everyone gets what they deserve but you aren't exactly happy about it. I love most of these characters as much as I loathe them; the only one I cannot excuse is
Finally, I only recommend the audiobook if you want to hear how the author intended sentence emphasis to fall. Although I grew to like the author's voice and accent, it takes a lot of adjusting to feel it belongs to Richard, and the Bunny and Julian voices could have come out of a pair of muppets.
The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Reading The Sword of Kaigen went a little like...
Chapter 1-3:A fantasy take on a super-traditional Japanese village on a picturesque little mountain by the sea. Ponyo vibes. Creative uses of waterbending, too. This should be fun.
Chapters 4-11: These mother and son characters have some real meat on them. Few odd details in mom's backstory but we're really grappling with our and our nation's failures and how to handle that. Fun but more mature and realistic than expected too.
Chapters 12-13: ML Wang leaps for the title of best cinematic battle sequences in a book. Sanderson, who? Water and ice have never been more badass and the stakes could not be higher. I've never read anything this kinetic; the closest thing coming to mind are beautiful anime showdowns with five years of buildup. When did I start caring about these characters so much? I have to keep catching myself from looking ahead on the page out of sheer anxiety for them. I sat down to read one chapter but end up reading a third of this 650-page book at once.
Chapters 14-17: You can do that??????? Are you allowed to do that in a book??? I almost wish you weren't.I'm crying over paper for the first time since Fred died. I have to get up and pace. What is going on. Have not felt this flayed by a fantasy book since the Broken Earth trilogy. A POV character dying is bold enough but usually those books span years and have like six POV characters who are all adults bringing their demises upon themselves with their hubris. I can only think of one other instance of getting blindsided with a child POV dying and even that was at the end of her book. I feel almost manipulated by being given his POV only to have it ripped away but it set us up to share Mikasi's loss the way a single POV never could have.
Chapters 18-27: We're dealing with the aftermath slowly but anything faster would feel rushed. My nerves are grateful for this slow-acting balm. The big emotional moment is thrilling and well-earned and if it doesn't pack quite as much punch, that's only because we're still reeling from the cannonball to the face that was the previous chapters. Also, though not the smoothest reading experience, there was a beautiful synergy between form and content in Wang giving us a slice ofTakeru's POV in the moment he finally let Misaki see behind his shields. I would have liked him to take over as secondary POV from that point on to keep them as a team at the forefront, since that seemed like the fruit of this book's labour, but I respect that it was ultimately Misaki's story.
Chapters 28-31: Should have been the start of book two but these characters are family to me now so I'm in it to the end. The final chapter also brings in a character who is a lovely way for us to witness just how muchMisaki has grown. Also, it's cute.
This is the kind of book that makes me grateful for self-publishing as I doubt this non-traditional structure would have made it through a publishing house's edits. Turning theorphaned superpowered hero trope on its head was also a colossal risk. However, by having that sneak-attack climax in the middle of the book, we get to keep watching after the point the curtain would usually fall, and see how these characters grow around hardship like the trunk of a tree. It does bear some of the clunkiness of a work without many eyes on it - Misaki's backstory as a vigilante, complete with a boy called Robin, is tonally jarring (although the idea of her past being a violence 'vacation' is compelling and the modern elements like internet felt unnecessary - but I'd forgive a thousand more fumbles for the honest, sometimes ugly, depth of character it achieved.
I really can't speak highly enough about the battle sequence either. Eighty pages of fight-or-flight adrenaline, constantly keeping you on your toes with new techniques, new environments, new stakes. My eyes were dry from not blinking enough. You need to read Sword of Kaigen, if only for that, in the same way you owe it to yourself to watch John Wick and House of Flying Daggers.
Chapter 1-3:A fantasy take on a super-traditional Japanese village on a picturesque little mountain by the sea. Ponyo vibes. Creative uses of waterbending, too. This should be fun.
Chapters 4-11: These mother and son characters have some real meat on them. Few odd details in mom's backstory but we're really grappling with our and our nation's failures and how to handle that. Fun but more mature and realistic than expected too.
Chapters 12-13: ML Wang leaps for the title of best cinematic battle sequences in a book. Sanderson, who? Water and ice have never been more badass and the stakes could not be higher. I've never read anything this kinetic; the closest thing coming to mind are beautiful anime showdowns with five years of buildup. When did I start caring about these characters so much? I have to keep catching myself from looking ahead on the page out of sheer anxiety for them. I sat down to read one chapter but end up reading a third of this 650-page book at once.
Chapters 14-17: You can do that??????? Are you allowed to do that in a book??? I almost wish you weren't.
Chapters 18-27: We're dealing with the aftermath slowly but anything faster would feel rushed. My nerves are grateful for this slow-acting balm. The big emotional moment is thrilling and well-earned and if it doesn't pack quite as much punch, that's only because we're still reeling from the cannonball to the face that was the previous chapters. Also, though not the smoothest reading experience, there was a beautiful synergy between form and content in Wang giving us a slice of
Chapters 28-31: Should have been the start of book two but these characters are family to me now so I'm in it to the end. The final chapter also brings in a character who is a lovely way for us to witness just how much
This is the kind of book that makes me grateful for self-publishing as I doubt this non-traditional structure would have made it through a publishing house's edits. Turning the
I really can't speak highly enough about the battle sequence either. Eighty pages of fight-or-flight adrenaline, constantly keeping you on your toes with new techniques, new environments, new stakes. My eyes were dry from not blinking enough. You need to read Sword of Kaigen, if only for that, in the same way you owe it to yourself to watch John Wick and House of Flying Daggers.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Miscarriage, Child death, Classism, Rape, Toxic relationship, Pregnancy, Domestic abuse, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, and Misogyny
A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas
Mostly, I just wish some of the hard choices our heroes make were pushed and explored further as truly morally ambiguous. And that Lucien was in every chapter.
adventurous
dark
lighthearted
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Entertaining again. If you are looking to shut off the brain, kick your feet, and giggle, this'll do it.
Maas is clearly trying to bring a layer more nuance than is traditionally typical for the romance genre in having Feyre struggle with her trolley problem murders and not end up with her original love interest. I welcome this. There were even a few lines that captured some real depth and wisdom. It's a step in the right direction, even if we're never really question whether Feyre will face lasting consequences any more than we do that she'll end up with Rhysand. Even if Rhysand's superiority is made clear immediately and repeatedly while Tamlin speedruns villainy. Even if it's all as subtle as a bag of bricks to the dome.
Yet again, the side-quest fairies who most closely resemble their mythological counterparts are the most interesting. In contrast to Rhysand's Inner Circle of lovely but not terribly original friends (with the possible exception of Amren), the fairy-fairies are intimidating and otherworldly. We see my favourite Suriel again, and also two (original?) delightfully sinister creatures, the Bone Carver and the Weaver. Feyre's meetings with them are the most memorable and exciting parts of the book and the only time you feel real fear that the heroes are facing something that could ruin them.
The romance payoff works too. Feyre and Rhysand are cute together, dammit, but over 600 pages, even their snarking and flirting grows repetitive. By the sixth obstacle or missed opportunity, I started hoping she'd go yell at Tamlin again just for a change of pace. Even the ending couldn't stop me skimming until Maas finally kicked into high gear with theTamlin and Lucien reveal.
Other things that haunt me:
Maas is clearly trying to bring a layer more nuance than is traditionally typical for the romance genre in having Feyre struggle with her trolley problem murders and not end up with her original love interest. I welcome this. There were even a few lines that captured some real depth and wisdom. It's a step in the right direction, even if we're never really question whether Feyre will face lasting consequences any more than we do that she'll end up with Rhysand. Even if Rhysand's superiority is made clear immediately and repeatedly while Tamlin speedruns villainy. Even if it's all as subtle as a bag of bricks to the dome.
Yet again, the side-quest fairies who most closely resemble their mythological counterparts are the most interesting. In contrast to Rhysand's Inner Circle of lovely but not terribly original friends (with the possible exception of Amren), the fairy-fairies are intimidating and otherworldly. We see my favourite Suriel again, and also two (original?) delightfully sinister creatures, the Bone Carver and the Weaver. Feyre's meetings with them are the most memorable and exciting parts of the book and the only time you feel real fear that the heroes are facing something that could ruin them.
The romance payoff works too. Feyre and Rhysand are cute together, dammit, but over 600 pages, even their snarking and flirting grows repetitive. By the sixth obstacle or missed opportunity, I started hoping she'd go yell at Tamlin again just for a change of pace. Even the ending couldn't stop me skimming until Maas finally kicked into high gear with the
Other things that haunt me:
- The idea of a fairy city having night clubs, lingerie shops, and bank accounts with lines of credit.
- The idea that Rhysand is overpaying Feyre when she literally
has every power and is the only one who can enact his plan to save the world . - "Licking" as a synonym for oral. This cannot be allowed to continue
- Rhysand's little speech about
shaking mountains if she gave him head turning out to be literal. Sir, you are a head of state. You cannot be terrorising the populace with both property damage and the knowledge of why it's occurring. - How no-one acknowledges that Tamlin and Lucien's concern Feyre is being mind-controlled is extremely legitimate! Their personal enemy, who spent weeks publically sexually assaulting Feyre and is known for mind tricks, kidnapped her from her wedding and they're supposed to believe her letter that it's all good?? Let them be shitty control freaks without this as an excuse.
- Nesta, a human, was described as roaring and now I'm no longer certain if all the fairies snarling and growling and roaring are doing so metaphorically too or literally, as I had assumed
- Fairy diplomacy is WILD. I'm pleased they have different etiquette to humans but the Night Court's standard diplomatic strategy seems to be to show up and pretend to be bored sluts. Heads of state talk about Feyre's chest and
practically fuck in the throne room. Consider my pearls clutched. - Morrigan, Azriel, and Cassian need to shit or get off the pot. Cassian makes the most valiant stab at being interesting but without the love triangle, they might all feel more like the powerful allies they're intended to be instead of teenagers.
- What is the significance of leaving the human queens nameless? Why would Rhysand
reveal Velaris now, on hope alone, when 3/4 of his tragic backstory is about protecting it? - The >9000 power levels erode all stakes. It's not enough for Rhysand to be able to mind kill, he has to be the Most Powerful High Lord Ever; it's not enough for Feyre to have all the High Lord powers, she can also just
decide not to be affected by the King of Hybern's magic (persuading it was a cute idea, but immediately dropped?) ; it's not enough for Azriel and Cassian to match the strongest Illyrians by using siphons, they have to use SEVEN. - The knee tattoo idea is something you write in your notes app at 4am while listening to Broken Crown but it should have been nixed in the cold light of day
Mostly, I just wish some of the hard choices our heroes make were pushed and explored further as truly morally ambiguous. And that Lucien was in every chapter.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Rape
The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem Jamnia
hopeful
informative
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
A thoughtful and detailed political landscape playing host to lovely characters with tragic yet believable flaws.
I especially enjoyed that the queernorm elements of the setting were different depending on the culture - not only nice but worldbuilding too! Kofi knowingly nicknaming Firuz they-Firuz after the Dilmuni style of introduction that was foreign to him was such a dad joke that it instantly established his character and the relationship he would take with Firuz. The differences in gender healthcare between their home and Qilwa provoke a whole subplot with their transitioning brother. Jamnia leverages their worldbuilding very elegantly to add depth.
Blood magic is described with a cool level of detail too. I was not surprised to learn Jamnia is a neuroscientist. The chair they use in training reminded me of the Guardian's techniques in NK Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy and brought all the same agonising over whether it can be justified again. I would have liked the magical mechanics we were taught throughout the book to have played a bigger role in the final confrontation, however. The technical aspects of that confrontation seemed to go so far beyond what we had learned that they felt a bit deus-ex-machina'ed to me. I also couldn't help wishing Firuz could havetried Kofi's ideas, via a less murderous methodology. He was groping at a beautiful combination of their practices, only for the story to relax into the playing God/man-gone-too-far trope that felt oddly anti-intellectual for such an intelligent protagonist. But perhaps I'm being naïve .
Despite the cruelties in the setting, this book felt very safe and kind thanks to its main character. They spend most of the narrative working themselves to the bone for their community. It is nice, but I was most interested in them in the moments they were questioning their assumptions about blood magic, their training, and their culture's complicated history. Afsoneh, on the other hand, kept me guessing whether she would be able to control herself or become a real problem. I might have found the story more engaging from her perspective but I don't at all regret listening to this version.
I especially enjoyed that the queernorm elements of the setting were different depending on the culture - not only nice but worldbuilding too! Kofi knowingly nicknaming Firuz they-Firuz after the Dilmuni style of introduction that was foreign to him was such a dad joke that it instantly established his character and the relationship he would take with Firuz. The differences in gender healthcare between their home and Qilwa provoke a whole subplot with their transitioning brother. Jamnia leverages their worldbuilding very elegantly to add depth.
Blood magic is described with a cool level of detail too. I was not surprised to learn Jamnia is a neuroscientist. The chair they use in training reminded me of the Guardian's techniques in NK Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy and brought all the same agonising over whether it can be justified again. I would have liked the magical mechanics we were taught throughout the book to have played a bigger role in the final confrontation, however. The technical aspects of that confrontation seemed to go so far beyond what we had learned that they felt a bit deus-ex-machina'ed to me. I also couldn't help wishing Firuz could have
Despite the cruelties in the setting, this book felt very safe and kind thanks to its main character. They spend most of the narrative working themselves to the bone for their community. It is nice, but I was most interested in them in the moments they were questioning their assumptions about blood magic, their training, and their culture's complicated history. Afsoneh, on the other hand, kept me guessing whether she would be able to control herself or become a real problem. I might have found the story more engaging from her perspective but I don't at all regret listening to this version.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror
Moderate: Transphobia