Kayla Savard
I love when a book that is not the type of book I would usually enjoy manages to surprise me. Going into this book, if you had told me that there is basically no plot, the mystery is never solved, and there were barely scenes let alone chapters, I absolutely would have assumed I would be cynically dragging my feet through the book, unable to connect and probably complaining a bit. Instead, I found myself nearly immediately clicking with the structure and voice of the story, and detaching from any subconscious expectations for where it would take me.
If my 4am existential crises were put to paper in a creative, yet comprehensible, fashion, I'd imagine it would end up looking something like this – and in one of those 4am moments, when I write things down that I know no one will ever read, I will definitely think of this book.
I don't feel like I can give this book 3 stars because even though there were elements that I enjoyed (The Stranger, some of the trials, some of the prose), I can't ignore that the flashbacks to the actual romance that led to this “I can't live without my soulmate, and I'll do anything to fix it” journey were not doing it for me whatsoever. She instantly fell in love at first sight with literally the first man she's ever been alone with, he likes her because...she's beautiful, and he can teach this clueless beauty about the real world I guess? Idk, I just didn't care about their dynamic at all, so was hard to bring that history into the Present Day chapters without feeling like this was all based on how a person feels when they are 11 and have their first major crush in Middle School because someone smiled at them.
So yeah, I definitely enjoyed the Present Day chapters way more than the flashback chapters, but given that is only half the book—and the Present Day chapters definitely had some issues with multiple deux ex machinas—I just can't justify higher.
I honestly enjoyed the overall story and gothic elements, and even enjoyed the bug descriptions, but the primary thing dragging my rating down is that the main character was driving me insane with her state of denial and never-ending “logical” explanations for things. Even after she sees that her grandmother has risen from the dead with a body made of rose branches and petals, she is still trying to say that the house fell into the ground because of a natural sinkhole...like, please just live in reality! I honestly would have been fine with this being her perspective if she got with the program earlier, but those comments/thoughts were still occurring at 85% and it was very frustrating.
The strength of this series 100% rests on the shoulders of these characters, with some support by the world building and lore, and that is the strongest part of this book along with the plot ending/semi-ending we are given—and while I love what was shown and given to us here, I do think there was something lost in diluting the cast with so many constantly-changing POVs and the condensed timeline this book takes place within. I love these characters, but condensing everything to 10 days and short 1/4-chapters-per-POV at a time with them did not feel like the best version of structure for this story to me. Additionally, I think this is the first time I have been genuinely distracted by the more modern-colloquial prose this series has taken on. I re-read TWoK this summer, and there is a noticeable shift in the linguistic atmosphere that I don't really enjoy as much in comparison to the first book.
That all being said, I still feel this is a solid 4 stars for this series. My favorite part of TWoK was Dalinar's visions of the past, and my favorite part of RoW was the explorations in the Cognative Realm—so getting multiple characters exploring the Spiritual Realm and the history of Roshar and the Cosmere were excellent. Additionally, I absolutely loved Renarin and Rlain's storyline through this book (I was literally Shallan in that one scene, jumping up and down clapping at their union), and very very much still enjoyed following Dalinar's journey from beginning to end.
Shallan, despite being one of my favorite characters in the series overall, definitely feels extraneous in this volume in particular—especially because I have never cared for the Ghostbloods subplot, and that was quite literally all she did this book. Honestly, a victim of the 10-day timeline this story takes place over.
On a different side of things in this map, if anything is true throughout this first 5 books of this series, it's that Kaladin's arc is the strongest and best overall. His character has grown, and regressed, and grown, and regressed, and grown—all in such believable fashion that I feel like, despite diluted POVs in this volume, he is still the heart and soul of this series. His and Syl's progression of whatever their relationship/dynamic is was beautiful, and his kindness and empathy with Szeth and the Heralds was so well realized after everything that he has been through and learned. A+ there.
Overall: I feel for sure that this is more of a Part 5/10 than it is a Part 5/5, and genuinely hope that in the years before BrandoSando starts on Part 6 that something reverts back to TWoK-era prose and pacing/focus within POVs, but there is no denying that this was a strong and interesting chapter in the Stormlight's overall plot and progression. I'm curious to see how it it eventually looks in retrospect once it is truly only the halfway point in the series, but for now I feel that it was a satisfying semi-conclusion to this part of the story.
I went into this one on quite a high from binging the first two books in this series, but this installment definitely had a hard time finding momentum in the plot, and I actually didn't like that we added Raihn's POV, as I honestly felt like it really didn't give us anything we couldn't have understood through Oraya's eyes, and in fact kind of just diluted the connection with Oraya's POV and made the book feel much more incongruous. As these are pretty large elements of the book, it definitely brought he enjoyment level down consistently for me throughout the entire thing unfortunately.
I did continue to enjoy learning more about this world and the politics, and I thought the effort put towards Oraya's very complicated grief was very successful – but those things weren't enough to blow my mind all on their own, and I definitely found my mind wanting to wander through at least half of the pages. The final ~20% was definitely the strongest chunk of the book though, so we ended on a pretty solid note for this story. So: it was just okay, but I am still very excited for the next book!
Why was this so good when it definitely didn't need to be! As a fan of super long books I wasn't expecting much out of this novella interlude, but was pleasantly surprised at how much I identified with Lilith, and how excited I was to get further growth and details in the world building — seeing the human continent and the dynamics with the other gods, hearing about the continent we spent Book 1 in from an outside perspective, gaining insight into the science vs. magic of this world, etc. were all really well done in a short amount of pages.
If I have one minor demerit, it's that I do think that Vale, as a romantic partner and a character in his own right, definitely needs further development—I don't think I could tell you much about him aside from that he was a recluse for a couple hundred years and he has a beard—but I have enough optimism from every other aspect of this little tale that I trust that his personality/role will be fleshed out more in the future.
My love for this came completely out of left field, because if you described this book to me as “fantasy vampire Hunger Games romance” I would assume at the very most I would give it 3.5 stars, purely if it was entertaining. Instead, I devoured this book in a couple days and found myself so into, and very impressed by, the interesting and dynamic characters and relationships (the very complicated father-daughter dynamic, the various class dynamics, the various faction/political dynamics, all so well done), brutal and impactful action sequences that really hit hard, really well-delivered world-building (never info-dumped on you, and very naturally integrated through scenes and conversations throughout), a romance with great chemistry (where I actually was shown why they would make a good pair, and wasn't rolling my eyes because their trust and attraction was written to build up very naturally), and just an overall excellently paced book that had me saying “...ok, just one more chapter” over and over.
So glad I get to jump right into the next book in the series!
DNF at 15%. I could tell immediately that the writing was very clunky and stilted, but thought I'd still try and give it a chance since the concept seemed campy and fun — but very very quickly became clear that this was not just awkwardly written, but was also full-on instalove (quite literally one scene after the intro, we are five months in the future and our POV character won't shut up about The Villain's lips), clumsy girl with question marks for a personality, dialogue straight out of a bad Hallmark movie, no humor that was hitting whatsoever, etc. It's a no from me.
I think my primary issue with this book was that the central “conflict” in this story ends up kind of just being about whether a book was plagiarized or not, and it turns out that that is just not super interesting to read about. Yes, there are other things going on, but barely, and the other things going on (the fantastical/hallucinatory episodes, and the “romance” if you can even call it that) were equally as lifeless, and failed to get me to care about anyone or anything that was happening.
A secondary issue is definitely that the worldbuilding is so thin that at multiple points I found myself wondering why this wasn't just set in Edwardian England, but with a very minor fantastical twist. In this “world” we are in, there is an unexplained war (that is super important, but also completely irrelevant), the country rivalry (what is it about? who knows, but we hate them and think they shouldn't be allowed to read our books), the North/South differences (what is the difference? idk, people in the south are willing to live in houses filled with water and black mold I guess), any clarity about the magic (seems people mostly think its fake, but also the “Sleepers” are super important to the war?), any clarity about technology in this world, even a good reasoning why this author/book is somehow the most important person/writing to ever exist etc. were all so opaque, way more distracting than intriguing, and kind of completely inconsequential to the story that was being told.
I think the only part that I feel was handled in a satisfying way was showing, through Effy's perspective, how trauma can present itself – and how difficult overcoming those experiences can be. Unfortunately, that one thread was not nearly enough to carry the rest of the book on its back, and I found myself just trying to get through the last 50% on the hope that something would spark in an interesting way, but was left disappointed.
Look, was this book technically “good”? No. But if what it takes to break my very long reading slump is a pulpy, cliché-ridden fantasy romance series, who am I to argue. I actually had a good, cheesy time despite my assumption that I'd hate it — and I'm going to read the next installment, so it did something right!
This was such a pleasant surprise of an enjoyable and well-written supernatural-tinted mystery! The atmosphere it created through the prose was excellent, the mystery was intriguing, the characters were well-drawn, and while for my personal taste the ending was a little rushed, it certainly didn't detract too much from the previous 95% of the book. I am definitely going to check out more from this author!
This was such a great read! The pacing was excellent, the characters were all super enjoyable, the world is revealing itself in well-spaced and very intriguing tidbits, and the ending left me extremely eager for more. Can't wait to continue this series, and the accompanying series set in this world!
3.5 stars. Probably a 2 star in terms of actual logic and depth, but the entertainment value was high enough to carry this whole book on its back in spite of the general lack of everything else that makes a book really good. I absolutely hated the main character, and though I am extremely pissed off that she got away with everything and rode off into the sunset with no consequences at the end, with her mediocre and personality-less "love interest", and all the characters (and their relationships) in general were super one-dimensional, I was very entertained the whole time – which in the end I guess is pretty much the only thing I'm looking for with books like this.
Honestly, its kind of like watching an episode of “Jersey Shore”. I never would want to hang out with these people, and if I think about it too much I hate all of them, and by extension the narrative for not punishing them in a cathartic-enough fashion – but if I switch my brain to the right setting, watching insane drama from irrational people is very entertaining, and that is worth something.
Checked the audiobook out from the library on a whim, and even though historically I do not enjoy short books/novellas, I ended up really loving this! The writing style was a perfect balance of being poetic and eerie without being too self-indulgent, and the vibe was immediately giving me “Stepford Wives” energy which I loved.
3.5 Stars. I enjoyed it enough to put the sequel on my TBR, but I might wait to commit until the final book is released before I continue on. This was a pretty quick read, pretty entertaining, with some enjoyably creepy (if sometimes hard to imagine) magic and creatures, but my main gripe was just that all I really cared about was Lin's plot, and therefore the other chapters often felt like chores I had to accomplish before getting back to the actual story. Also, unfortunately, I accidentally predicted the end twist that Lin and Bayan were constructs about 200 pages before it was actually “revealed”, so said “reveal” wasn't as exciting as it would have been in theory.
Like I said, still putting the sequel on my list, but will more be a thing to pick up if I don't have inspiration to read anything else instead of a book I'm chomping at the bit to read immediately.
It wasn't terrible by any means, and it took me less than an hour and a half to read so I can't complain too much, and there were certainly little snippets and sentences that made me go “Hey, I do that!” – but in the end, I think reading books like this has just reinforced that this kind of vague philosophical, disconnected-yet-lyrical, complete-lack-of-plot-and-characters kind of novel is just not for me.
This was so freaking good! The characters were excellent, the magic was so interesting, the pacing was perfect, and that ending made me both extremely excited to read the next books and completely at a loss for what could possibly take place in them - which makes moving forward even more intriguing. Loved it!