Redemptor

Last year i read Raybearer (as it came out in italian) and loved it. So I was very curious and hyped about the sequel.

Redemptor picks up where Raybearer finished. So we're immediately dealing with the consequences of the first book's ending.

I loved Ifueko's wiriting: it's fluent, not boring and allowed me to read the 443 pages of this book so fast, i couldn't believe it was such a large tome.

I still think that the author did an amazin job in creating such a complex, real, world of which she evokes every detail as you keep on reading: you're really immersed in the colors, the perfumes and the sound of this very diverse world inspired by the whole african continent.

I didn't quite enjoy the flat characters: aside from the protagonist, every character (at the beginning of book 1) has their ideology, thoughts and opinions, which never chages, despite the whole world chaging around them and Tarisai's views on what they should do as a governing body. Specifically: they witness terrible scenes (like in the mines for instace or the market one where tarisai gets kidnapped) and not once do they change their mind, or consider that Tarisai is right in worrying about their people. They still keep living in their quarters, unbothered.

Again, they know that Tarisai will have to descend in the underworld, and that she needs to prepare, and even then they find her worries shallow and misplaced,

Basically, while the protagonist is a well rounded character, that chagens, grows and react to what happen around her, the others are stuck in book one.

Even Jeet: he acts only for fear of his beloved's life. Not because he has a sudden epiphany about the righness of Tarisai ideas.

The only other poin that would've made this book better is to dive deeper in some parts that (i guess for avoiding a 600+ pages tome) i felt deserved to be explored further. For example: the ending felt a bit rushed, the prophecies about the Alagbatos destroying everything overlooked (and then the actual way in which this destruction is prevented unknown), the council disappears for the entire book.

Let's say that i think this book would've benefitted from being devided in two: where we deal with the consequence of Raybearer & the Alagbato menace in one, and the whole training / Tarisai hauting / underworld in the other.