Marthia
I loved the writing and imagination on display here, and it could have been 5 stars for me if it wasn't for the girl character. The other characters are all multifaceted and interesting (especially the priest), but Delphine doesn't feel like she gets the same internal complexity that's afforded to the adult men. When Delphine is acting as a character in her own right, I like her, but she's often simply treated as an instrument of divine will who acts based on godly intuition or what the angels tell her, and the book doesn't really dwell on how she feels about this or what impact it has on her. Especially compared to how Matthieu's alcoholism or homosexuality are handled.
I went back and forth on her character a lot, but the finale ultimately left me unsatisfied. Delphine's body is ripped apart as she births (this is literally the word the book uses) a host of angels and then she just vanishes from the story, to reappear later without any memories of the events of the story. Delphine dying is part of her being a Jesus figure, but Jesus in the Bible got to struggle with his purpose as a sacrifice. He bargains with God and cries out about being forsaken on the cross. Delphine doesn't get a scene like this, or any opinion at all about being a divine instrument.
I also have mixed feelings (leaning negative) about the story ending with them killing the demonic impostor pope so the good real pope can return to call off the impending crusade and tell everyone to be less antisemitic like the crusades and antisemitism were demonic incursions on the church and not perpetuated by real non-demon popes.
There was still a lot that I liked. The supernatural elements are creative and well used and the descriptions are vivid, one that especially stood out to me was the preparation of the corpses for the orgy towards the end. Generally I think these worked better when they were more subtle, but the grandios fights between heaven and hell still at least had imaginative descriptions. The characters are good, including Delphine. (Delphine being lively and opinionated otherwise is part of why the lack of her perspective on the angels bothers me so much)
I loved the writing and imagination on display here, and it could have been 5 stars for me if it wasn't for the girl character. The other characters are all multifaceted and interesting (especially the priest), but Delphine doesn't feel like she gets the same internal complexity that's afforded to the adult men. When Delphine is acting as a character in her own right, I like her, but she's often simply treated as an instrument of divine will who acts based on godly intuition or what the angels tell her, and the book doesn't really dwell on how she feels about this or what impact it has on her. Especially compared to how Matthieu's alcoholism or homosexuality are handled.
I went back and forth on her character a lot, but the finale ultimately left me unsatisfied. Delphine's body is ripped apart as she births (this is literally the word the book uses) a host of angels and then she just vanishes from the story, to reappear later without any memories of the events of the story. Delphine dying is part of her being a Jesus figure, but Jesus in the Bible got to struggle with his purpose as a sacrifice. He bargains with God and cries out about being forsaken on the cross. Delphine doesn't get a scene like this, or any opinion at all about being a divine instrument.
I also have mixed feelings (leaning negative) about the story ending with them killing the demonic impostor pope so the good real pope can return to call off the impending crusade and tell everyone to be less antisemitic like the crusades and antisemitism were demonic incursions on the church and not perpetuated by real non-demon popes.
There was still a lot that I liked. The supernatural elements are creative and well used and the descriptions are vivid, one that especially stood out to me was the preparation of the corpses for the orgy towards the end. Generally I think these worked better when they were more subtle, but the grandios fights between heaven and hell still at least had imaginative descriptions. The characters are good, including Delphine. (Delphine being lively and opinionated otherwise is part of why the lack of her perspective on the angels bothers me so much)