Ours Is the Storm

DNF at about a third of the way.

Some books just really kill my resolve to actually push through and this was that way. I wouldn't necessarily say it was a really bad book or that I feel nobody could like it, but honestly, it just hit so many of the things that kill a book for me.

First of all, the blurb ruins it all from the get go. We get told right away that Revik is wrong. Not just that, but when I started reading it was obvious that he was wrong. Hell, all people on his side are obviously written to be total assholes.
While at the same time everyone of the plainspeople are written as these wonderfully exotic, wise, deep, super mega warriors whose shit smells like roses.
I kind of dislike that, the way people living a simpler life are often portrayed as these wonderful people just by virtue of being “exotic”. Isn't it a bit... I don't know, weird to just assume that if someone lives in a hut instead of a house and walks instead of using a horse they are magically morally superior and somehow better as people? (Also, if it would be so, why don't people who believe it move to a hut? Sounds super easy to me.)
I really dislike when a book pushes the idea that the richer and/or more developed people and societies are somehow just bad, while the poor and/or less developed are just full of wisdom because of reasons. We are all people. We all have the potential for both in us.

The other thing is how damn slow this was. The flow of it feels like cement, with way too much talk about random, unimportant things. The weird writing style in the parts dealing with the tribe people didn't help as well. This goes back to my previous point. Why, oh why are they written like a bunch of deep wisdom spewing weirdass monks without a proper human personality? They all sound full of pathos and just really stiff. Not dynamic at all, like they are made out of wood.

Revik's story is weird for a different reason. He gets saved and raised by man, not remembering anything from his childhood and family and all. He doesn't ask, though. He just accepts almost no information at all and then does whatever he is told. A kid would want to know things, not just do the things, then accept everything randomly told him when it was convenient to convince him about something.

All in all, I really didn't like this one. It's lifeless and slow, doesn't really feel like the characters are actual people and the sides are ridiculously perfect for their role in this good and bad fight.