The Cartographers

2.5 Stars

When I start reading a new book I have the rating in mind from start to finish and when I tell you I fought hard for this book. I kept making excuses for it in my mind to keep that rating high. At 40% I had to accept it wasn't going to be a 5 star read, at 70% we hovered at 4-3 stars, at 80% I was sure that my final verdict would be 3 stars and I had a review drafted already that said “It was a good story but not a good novel.” Then somehow at that 90% mark it dropped to a 2 star, because it made me mad. I can't in good conscience even say it was a good story after reading that last act.

The premise is so interesting, the mystery intriguing, the cover GORGEOUS, but that's all the praise I could find after finishing the book.

One thing that stood out as I was reading was the lack of immersion. The author didn't spend time painting the settings or crafting the atmosphere of the scenes leaving me feeling emotionally disconnected to the happenings of the book. I wanted to be in there, experiencing the story with the characters, feeling the wonder and the grief and shock and joy, instead I felt like I was a passive bystander reading some director's notes for this excellent movie they had in mind.

While the majority of the book was told in third person, there are chapters from in first person POV from various characters. There are 2 problems I found with this:
1. The shift from third person to first was so clumsy and entirely took away from the reading experience
2. None of these characters have a distinct voice. They all sound the same.

The magic system in the book's universe was so confusing to understand. This wouldn't actually matter a lot of times, I've read plenty of books where the magic is never explained, but it felt especially bad in this book in particular because the characters are academics. Academics who have just discovered magic. And they did try to explain it to us but it was just a confusing mess all in all.

(Personal pet-peeve: some of the dialogue is too cheesy and cliché. Maybe just a nitpick)

One last thing, in terms of the dark academia genre, this book falls flat. Self importance, secrecy, and drama are key components to dark academia novels, but these things can also be insufferable. Most books in the genre deal with it by making the reader feel included in this elite group and making the audience buy into the hype of whatever discipline the cast of characters focus on like classics, theatre, history, the likes. I expected this book to make me fall in love with cartography and make me understand why these characters are so passionate (to the point of MURDER) about the craft of map making. The Cartographer's did no such thing and I think that's it's biggest failure.