Dina
This was pretty good. And terrifying, and brutal, and with a surprisingly high body count. I preferred Beautiful Darkness by Kerascoet, but I'll definitely try out more of this artist's books.
The style, while very simple, almost childish in a way, totally works for the dark subject matter. I can't put my finger on it but I really, really like this kind of stuff.
A cute little story that left me a bit underwhelmed.
Told in the form of Jade's diary, what I missed the most in this story was a sense of place and time. The language is really rather pretty but if the blurb and the titles of each diary entry hadn't said so, I would have had no idea that this was set in the 1920s.
What I did like was Jade's view of the world and relationships. She is a practical woman who doesn't fuss around with romance much. Telling you more would be spoiling, so I'll keep it at that.
I enjoyed this well enough, I liked Jade and the way she told her story. In the end, things fell into place a bit too neatly and there wasn't enough build-up for the romance, at least for my taste (then again, I either go for the doorstopper-kind of romance stories or for bickering couples, so I'm hard to please).
A bit more drama or action or just problems for our heroine to overcome would have made this more interesting. But there is no doubt that Zen Cho can write, and I'll be glad to try something else she's written.
As the series goes, this was by far the soppiest, easiest happily ever after.
I am thrilled of course that two characters finally got together properly but I would have expected it to be way more complicated. After an absence of several years, things just fall into place. Everybody is nice - Prince CHARMING is nice, for frak's sake.
This happy ending came too easy to have the impact it should have had and that's a shame.
The storylines involving more action (especially Cinderella's snarky tale) made up for it, however, and I'm still as hooked as I was many issues ago.
Here's another review book I couldn't finish. It suffered from many of the same symptoms as “The Waking Engine” by David Eddison did, but Rjurik Davidson did give his characters a bit more room to come to life.
While Eddison simply seemed to have added characters in order to show off his fancy world building, Davidson shifts perspective to keep things moving. However, every single chapter starts with a few pages of boring exposition, there is little dialogue and not nearly enough world building set up in order to understand the events that are happening. If I hadn't read the blurb, I would have been rather lost.
But - and this is a big But - this book isn't without merit. I believe that many people will like it a lot more than I did. The style didn't appeal to me and after about a third, I gave up. After all, forcing myself to read 10 pages at a time and then putting the book down annoyed isn't my idea of fun. But if you enjoy the writing and don't mind the exposition, there could be something there for you.
With three protagonists - vastly different in social status and personality - there is a good chance readers will fall in love with at least one of them and follow their story longer than I did. Kata, a former street urchin now employed by House Technis, has to kill two minotaurs in order to pay off her dept. Maximilian is a rebel, collecting people for his cause to overthrow the political status quo. And Boris is trying to better the working conditions for railroad workers.
There are hints of magic and tons of politics - but I didn't get deep enough into them to be hooked. While I believe this book may just kick off eventually, I lack the stamina to push through more than a third of a book to finally get to the parts that are good. I would definitely recommend to read an excerpt and see if it's for you. And if it is, be nice and let me know if I missed something brilliant.
Review hiding under the link.
I didn't expect to like this.
The book has its problems (especially with female characters) but overall, I enjoyed the story. If an author manages to make me care about characters I really, really, really dislike, he did something right. And I can't wait to find out what happens in the next volume.
Here is my review.
I'm one of the few people who weren't drawn in by the cover. But some dear internet friends kept pushing the book until I gave in.
This was a wonderful story with so many layers. I loved every aspect of it, the characters, the world-building, the plot. McIntosh has some damn insight into the human mind and how we work (or don't work) when we're in love.
Can't wait to read his other books.
