City of Strife

I had a very rocky road with this book before I even ever started reading it.

I first came across the book about three years ago, when it was recommended to me upon my request for a LGBT+ friendly fantasy book. At the time I was looking for a good, solid fantasy book that wasn't about the usual cishet cast (because I love fantasy, but it seems to lag behind literally every other genre) and nor was it a romance badly disguised as a ‘fantasy.' This book was recommended to me. I promptly put it on my TBR and then just as promptly...ignored it.

Fast forward to the beginning of 2021 and cue me looking at my TBR list and realizing I have four years worth of books on it that I thought ‘oh, I have to read.' I finally made it up to 2018 books and came across this one. Now, my funds to spend on books these days is very tight. Most of my reading is done thanks to my library. Those books that my library doesn't have, that are new-to-me-authors, get a very rigorous look at them to decide if they are worth spending my hard earned cash on.

One way I do this is to use the Goodreads or Amazon preview. I used just that for this book and had a knee-jerk reaction to the book. Mostly to Arathiel's...lack. Without getting too deep into it, his senses have all been dampened: he can taste nothing, his sense of touch is almost nil, his hearing is muffled and his vision is not very good. For me personally, this gave me pause. In fact, I never actually finished that preview, I was so turned off by this. (Let's just say, this is straight out of horror, for me personally.)

However, I could not get this book out of my head. I found myself wanting to read it. So bought it. Figuring I probably shouldn't have and that I would be looking at a DNF.

Well, this book is everything I was told it was. It has an interesting cast of characters (I do not like all of them, but there are a few that I adore) and there is so much diversity. Oh, my gosh, is there so much diversity.

Before I finished the book, I thought I would probably fate it four stars - but the fact is, I finished what is a four hundred fifty page book in three days, including working two of those three days. This book is just so addictive to read and ... Look, I like books that end up well. I don't like a lot of stress from my reading, but at the same time, I don't want things to be too easy.

I got really attached to some of these characters (a certain assassin, for example) and I desperately want things to turn out well for nearly every POV character. (There's a couple - thankfully minor - ones that I just don't like) But, unlike other books of this nature that I've read, as I was reading, I felt like things would turn out okay in the end.

In other notes, I love the fact that family and friendships are the relationships that get the focus. There is one established couple (that is a very solid one that, surprisingly enough, did not annoy me) but beyond that...people are not pairing off. There's little to no hints of romance and several of the closest relationships - that in any other book would be preludes to romance - are of incompatible orientation.

That being said, for those that don't know, the author is aro/ace spectrum herself and I highly recommend this book to those out there that are tired of romance being shoehorned into their fantasy.