Horst

I hate this book, I DNF'd it at around 80%.
Why would someone DNF a book 80% in? Because it pissed me off more and more page after page and I'm angry at me for getting this far and not having backed out earlier.

It starts out quite well. The world building is alright and I was kinda hooked after 100-200 pages, I especially liked the religious feud and how their adherents worked against each other.

But there's some major gripes with this book:

- The constant bantering and bickering is extremely annoying. All these odious people in the book (the POV characters are all completely unlikeable) make each other huffy all the time, using profane vocabulary, real gutter talk. Totally out of place in a fantasy book. Sometimes I just dislike a book but The Forgetting Moon managed to make me downright angry with its constant bickering. At some point you just want to shout at them something like “Where's your manners?” or so.

- The cruelty is abominable and serves no purpose other than to shock. I don't understand how anyone can like this gory and disgusting stuff.

- Already mentioned that the POV characters are unlikeable. All of them. In the beginning I didn't care because the plot seemed to be thrilling and there were some intriguing plot lines set up which made me read on. But after a while it gets harder to turn the pages when the plot is the only drive and you can't connect with any of them.

- All women are super beautiful and the hottest of the hottest. There's superfluous sexual tension everywhere and without giving any spoilers, some major plot lines involve downright ridiculous love scenes. One could assume a 14 year old wrote this, so ludicrous is it.

Don't buy this. Don't get lured into it by the first chapters which give you a feeling that this is something really unique and worth a read. It's only unique at the surface. The religion is a christianity rip-off, the non-human races are elves and ogres in disguise and there is next to no fantasy in this book, other than the basic setup and the coveted artifacts and the few non-human races.