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wumings's reviews
389 reviews
The Gods Below by Andrea Stewart
mysterious
tense
2.0
i wanna root for adult queer fantasy books by authors of color so badly but they're making it really hard for me.
unfortunately, i have very few good things to say about this one. but some positives: the writing flows well, it's fairly easy to get into. the worldbuilding with the gods living in a magical underground world is pretty cool. i like the ecological fantasy premise, with the concept of humans having destroyed the natural magical forest and in response, a god rising up to shatter the existing lands to remake and restore them. basically, good concepts and ideas, beautiful gowns, but the execution left a lot to be desired.
my biggest gripes: poor character building, poorly written dialogue, utterly uninteresting plot. it's all well and good to have unique fantasy concepts and i can tell the author put a lot of effort into these ideas, but without good characters and an engaging plot, it's all useless. all the characters were so frustratingly single-minded that their POV chapters quickly became unbearably repetitive - i had to read them having the exact same thoughts and the exact same conversations over and over and over again (funnily enough, a problem i had with the author's previous book the bone shard war).
hakara and rasha's relationship as estranged sisters on opposing sides of a war was supposed to be the emotional core of this story but it made me feel nothing. at most, i felt mildly annoyed but also i just didn't care much. they didn't feel like fully rounded characters and frankly, they just weren't compelling enough for me to be invested in them. same goes for the other relationships in the story - none of them felt developed or genuine. there are a couple of potential romantic connections being made (one f/f and one m/f) but again, both were shallow and unconvincing. only one side character stood out to me....and i don't know if i can forgive the author for writing a story with prominent women characters and giving the most interesting backstory to a man.
overall, everything about this book is just surface-level and underdeveloped and boring as hell. i was bored out of my mind the whole way through, right to the very end. there aren't even any strong themes here - something about how the world isn't what the characters think it is, religion as propaganda, etc, but they're only touched upon. there's literally no depth to this book.
anyway, let's end with some recs: if you want an actually good ecological fantasy about climate disasters and magic, read the fifth season instead. if you want a story about doomed sisters actually done well, watch arcane instead. if you want to read a fantasy about religion as propaganda and how the world isn't as it seems, check out blood over bright haven instead.
thank you to netgalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
unfortunately, i have very few good things to say about this one. but some positives: the writing flows well, it's fairly easy to get into. the worldbuilding with the gods living in a magical underground world is pretty cool. i like the ecological fantasy premise, with the concept of humans having destroyed the natural magical forest and in response, a god rising up to shatter the existing lands to remake and restore them. basically, good concepts and ideas, beautiful gowns, but the execution left a lot to be desired.
my biggest gripes: poor character building, poorly written dialogue, utterly uninteresting plot. it's all well and good to have unique fantasy concepts and i can tell the author put a lot of effort into these ideas, but without good characters and an engaging plot, it's all useless. all the characters were so frustratingly single-minded that their POV chapters quickly became unbearably repetitive - i had to read them having the exact same thoughts and the exact same conversations over and over and over again (funnily enough, a problem i had with the author's previous book the bone shard war).
hakara and rasha's relationship as estranged sisters on opposing sides of a war was supposed to be the emotional core of this story but it made me feel nothing. at most, i felt mildly annoyed but also i just didn't care much. they didn't feel like fully rounded characters and frankly, they just weren't compelling enough for me to be invested in them. same goes for the other relationships in the story - none of them felt developed or genuine. there are a couple of potential romantic connections being made (one f/f and one m/f) but again, both were shallow and unconvincing. only one side character stood out to me....and i don't know if i can forgive the author for writing a story with prominent women characters and giving the most interesting backstory to a man.
overall, everything about this book is just surface-level and underdeveloped and boring as hell. i was bored out of my mind the whole way through, right to the very end. there aren't even any strong themes here - something about how the world isn't what the characters think it is, religion as propaganda, etc, but they're only touched upon. there's literally no depth to this book.
anyway, let's end with some recs: if you want an actually good ecological fantasy about climate disasters and magic, read the fifth season instead. if you want a story about doomed sisters actually done well, watch arcane instead. if you want to read a fantasy about religion as propaganda and how the world isn't as it seems, check out blood over bright haven instead.
thank you to netgalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga
challenging
reflective
tense
4.0
this book is both deeply engaging and extremely difficult to read - it's difficult for me to read about women so trapped in their roles by society and the men who rage and lord over them, women who have to fight tooth and nail and give up self-respect just to survive and live a decent life.
the way i connected on so many levels with these african women living in colonized zimbabwe (rhodesia back then) in the late 1960s showed me that the struggles of women really do transcend borders and time. but i also appreciated the look into african culture at the time of colonization, particularly the bonds between women living in a severely patriarchal society where the patriarch of the family would be likened to a god.
i liked seeing our protagonist, tambudzai, fighting against expectations to get an education and got frustrated when she succumbed to traditions along the way (even though i completely understood her). there's this running theme of being torn between tradition and progress that speaks to a lot of us from the global south - this urge to tear out the ugly, backward, misogynist aspects of your culture and at the same time, wanting to preserve your culture and customs in the face of colonization. wanting to be proud of where you come from and wanting to grab at any chance of a better life. it's a difficult story with an uneasy, tense atmosphere and no answers at all. but i'm so glad it exists.
the way i connected on so many levels with these african women living in colonized zimbabwe (rhodesia back then) in the late 1960s showed me that the struggles of women really do transcend borders and time. but i also appreciated the look into african culture at the time of colonization, particularly the bonds between women living in a severely patriarchal society where the patriarch of the family would be likened to a god.
i liked seeing our protagonist, tambudzai, fighting against expectations to get an education and got frustrated when she succumbed to traditions along the way (even though i completely understood her). there's this running theme of being torn between tradition and progress that speaks to a lot of us from the global south - this urge to tear out the ugly, backward, misogynist aspects of your culture and at the same time, wanting to preserve your culture and customs in the face of colonization. wanting to be proud of where you come from and wanting to grab at any chance of a better life. it's a difficult story with an uneasy, tense atmosphere and no answers at all. but i'm so glad it exists.