Aleks

Really enjoyed this. Was worried I wouldn't, because of the slivers of 2016 meme humour-- but I am pleased to say they didn't bother me after a while. Muir is very talented and writes some great, sharp sentences, and this is a very well-deployed first book in a series, that still tells a complete story while leaving questions and plot threads echoing around in your head. Putting the sequel on hold now.

This is great-- good prose and a fully-realized world. Not 100% up my personal alley (not really a boat/pirate gal) but I respect the hell out of this.

I did find that it felt incomplete in the way of a "first book that's already intended to be part of a trilogy". I like it better when the first book feels complete and a sequel expands on it. I also had a hard time with the characters, a lot of them blurred together for me. But still, the world here is so great that my takeaway is "wow". It's not all the time you read a fantasy that feels this distinct.

I also like the small, thoughtful touches towards gender equality, sexuality, etc.- both logical for the world and also, I'm just glad to not be reading my 15,000th generically sexist fantasy universe.

Undoubtedly charming, but suffers under the weight of its genre obligations. Also, I just don’t buy this male character. I think it’s too much laid on too thick that he’s loved her from afar for years (semi-openly!), that he’s emotionally repressed but also incredibly emotionally articulate… tips too far over the edge of disbelief for me. At one point she’s like “I expected him to be mean to me!” But he literally barely has ever even been rude to you. It’s tough to make a character difficult enough to facilitate the narrative while also not a total asshole you want dead, and you can really feel Henry struggling with where to draw that line. Also I think it’s always so funny when a book like this ends with a stapled-on final chapter reassuring you that they got engaged. Like, true love— not quite enough! Readers need to know they made it legal, apparently. Anyways my favourite line in the whole thing was when she said her best friend “screams whenever she turns left”. Soo fucking real and such a tight, funny, vivid character moment— I wanted more like that and less “I’m the sexiest and most in touch with my feelings guy ever 😇 except when I’m not 👿”.

Something I reallyyyyy love about McKillip is her vibe-based magic. There's no meticulous description of how it all works; she just trusts that it feels right, and it does. Dream logic. I love the sensuality and instinctiveness of it. And the moment in this when Kane first addresses her daughter is SO good.

Didn't really enjoy this. Two things that stood out:

1. Don't like it when an author wants to make one character the smartest in the room, and they do so by making other characters unreasonably stupid. There's a scene in this where the US secretary of state doesn't know who Oda Nobunaga is plsssss
2. The Joss Whedon-style dialogue. It works in stuff like Buffy because there's a good balance of serious and snark. This tips way too far into pure snark. If you're not taking your own plot seriously why should I?

I'd like to read this again, because there's a lot here to like but I just didn't really click with it. I enjoyed her later work more. The dialogue here is a little heavy-handed and stilted; and although I like that the second book focuses on the women, it's a lil frustrating that it basically retreads the first. But it feels weird to complain about such a great author bc I know the next fantasy I read is probably not going to be at her level.

Also the repetitive names drove me a little nuts. Morgon, Morgol, Hel, Hed-- enuf!!

I read this in one day, so, there's that! Definitely better than The Maidens, but not better written or more interesting, just slightly less stupid. Michaelides has a lot of really interesting nuggets of ideas but either won't or can't execute them effectively. He is also allergic to subtlety. The twist IS a cool idea but it was cooler when Agatha Christie did it like 100 years ago.

I was also amused/frustrated that he makes such a big fuss over what a fascinating and unique person Alicia is, only for her POV chapters to be SOOOOOOOOOO banal. Slightly bitchy at worst. I started Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh today, too-- now that is a gnarly fucking book unafraid to get real weird with it. And I'm on, like, page 30. Anyways. I do give props to the author for writing a real page-turner because that's a skill. But having read two of his books now it's clear that all he can do is write the exact same thing over again. Shut up about Greece and weed, my God.

Also I'm pissed because Michaelides overuses the em dash so hard that he makes ME self-conscious about MY overuse. I literally deleted an em dash from this review. 😤

The first time I read this, I was deeply frustrated & yet compelled to keep going until about 2/3 of the way through. This time I feel like I'm reading it with my eyes open for the first time. Incredibly rewarding, rich, layered. My original review in my notes app said "I still don't understand and maybe never will but I see the edge of the illusion now."

My original review for this just said "Too tidy!! Why??" One thing I loved about BOTNS was the way you really just get tossed into this world with little explanation and have the opportunity to put things together for yourself. Urth ties things up a little too neatly for me; I enjoyed the ragged edges.

Really cool idea, but far too eager to explain itself; and the plot is not really complex enough to justify all that. I felt like I was ten steps ahead of the protag at times and you never really want to feel that way. Also I personally find it irritating when alien races are portrayed as basically the same as human beings. Like really an alien with mommy issues. We have enough of those.