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kthebookwyrm 's review for:
Holy Sister
by Mark Lawrence
This will be a review in two parts, one being a review for this book on its own, the second part being for the trilogy as a whole, plus the short story that takes place between books 2 and 3.
By the way, read that short story before you start book 3, it's got some pretty important stuff crammed into its 50 pages.
As with the rest of this series, everything with this book was done well. The characters were compelling, the continued worldbuilding was on point, and the plot built up to a breakneck pace by the end. The only "complaint" I have is the way the 2 timelines were handled, although I can't say I have a suggestion for how it could have been done better. While necessary for the story, the way the story alternated between the 2 was rather jarring. Just as one storyline is building up to something important the book would cut to the other timeline and then you have to remember where that timeline left off. I read a lot of books with multiple POVs and even some with multiple timelines, so this wasn't a huge obstacle for me but it did occasionally pull me out of the story. I knew it was done purposefully though, so I didn't let it irritate me too much. The pay off was satisfying so all is forgiven.
From here on out---spoilers!
Sister Apple! Sister Pan! Just tear out my heart already Mark Lawrence. I was so happy-devastated when we had some impactful deaths at the end. While none of the main crew died, we did lose Sister Apple, the glorious Sister Pan, and the oft-despised Sister Wheel, not to mention most of the other nuns and novices from Sweet Mercy. I feel like Ara should have died but that's just some personal preference speaking.
Binge-reading all 3 books did allow me to better see the common structure of these books than if I would have read them more spread out. Because of this, I knew we were going to have an Abbess Glass manipulation going on (which is done in a very heist-story way, my favorite), a big battle, and at least one death of someone close to Nona. I honestly thought Ara might die, but somehow she squeaked through. The only downside was knowing that the Glass twist was coming. I didn't know what it was, but I knew something was going to happen and (sadly) that was enough to ease some of the tension.
As a trilogy, these books worked great. The first book set everything up in a compelling way (so much so that I attempted to read something else after it and couldn't, I had to read Grey Sister), I didn't feel any sort of slump in the middle, the finale was satisfying and impactful, and there were enough threads between all 3 to get that little spark of satisfaction when something casually mentioned a book or 2 before turned out to have a purpose after all. Overall, I was very impressed with this trilogy and can't recommend it enough.
By the way, read that short story before you start book 3, it's got some pretty important stuff crammed into its 50 pages.
As with the rest of this series, everything with this book was done well. The characters were compelling, the continued worldbuilding was on point, and the plot built up to a breakneck pace by the end. The only "complaint" I have is the way the 2 timelines were handled, although I can't say I have a suggestion for how it could have been done better. While necessary for the story, the way the story alternated between the 2 was rather jarring. Just as one storyline is building up to something important the book would cut to the other timeline and then you have to remember where that timeline left off. I read a lot of books with multiple POVs and even some with multiple timelines, so this wasn't a huge obstacle for me but it did occasionally pull me out of the story. I knew it was done purposefully though, so I didn't let it irritate me too much. The pay off was satisfying so all is forgiven.
From here on out---spoilers!
Sister Apple! Sister Pan! Just tear out my heart already Mark Lawrence. I was so happy-devastated when we had some impactful deaths at the end. While none of the main crew died, we did lose Sister Apple, the glorious Sister Pan, and the oft-despised Sister Wheel, not to mention most of the other nuns and novices from Sweet Mercy. I feel like Ara should have died but that's just some personal preference speaking.
Binge-reading all 3 books did allow me to better see the common structure of these books than if I would have read them more spread out. Because of this, I knew we were going to have an Abbess Glass manipulation going on (which is done in a very heist-story way, my favorite), a big battle, and at least one death of someone close to Nona. I honestly thought Ara might die, but somehow she squeaked through. The only downside was knowing that the Glass twist was coming. I didn't know what it was, but I knew something was going to happen and (sadly) that was enough to ease some of the tension.
As a trilogy, these books worked great. The first book set everything up in a compelling way (so much so that I attempted to read something else after it and couldn't, I had to read Grey Sister), I didn't feel any sort of slump in the middle, the finale was satisfying and impactful, and there were enough threads between all 3 to get that little spark of satisfaction when something casually mentioned a book or 2 before turned out to have a purpose after all. Overall, I was very impressed with this trilogy and can't recommend it enough.