booksny's Reviews (332)

Some dated language and tropes which haven't aged well, but overall enjoyed the tight storytelling, satirical humor, cheeky illustrations and distinctive characters

I really enjoyed this - found it a touching read. It should be noted that it's written as a memoir with a limited POV on a small handful of people trying to thrive (not just survive) under harsh conditios, so don't expect thorough detail on all the nuances of the Syrian war.

I enjoyed this glimpse into a very unfamiliar world. Victoria writes eloquently and beautifully. Some parts, especially at the beginning, feel highly (and understandably) romanticized; other parts were brutally and fascinatingly honest. 

Enjoyed some of the interactions the legion had with the general. Otherwise found this a very tedious story to read through - there was a lot of unnecessary choices made and general incompetence 

Enjoyed this a surprising amount - excellent humor and character development 

 I remember enjoying this book when I read it a decade ago and rating it a 4*. Unfortunately knocking it down to a 3* in this current re-read. 

The elements I enjoyed included engaging prose, a lot of promising characters and interesting worldbuilding. The elements I did not enjoy were
1. How heavily the plot relied on deux ex machina for further progression and resolution. Rialla, Ren and Laeth seemed like interesting, likable characters; they were also remarkably incompetent with bad strategic judgement considering their implied experiences as mercenaries and spies. There was no real need for Rialla to do a lot of the things she did e.g. give a public dance performance that drew attention, when she tasked with being quiet and unnoticed in the background listening to secrets. Rialla even had difficulty reading the script of the people that she wanted to spy on; she was incredibly lucky that she didn't end up sabotaging her own cause. Laeth made for a very poor spy, considering he just

left without asking Rialla what her plan was - it was a very flimsy plan (find a dagger that may have been thrown away for all they knew) that only became better after discussion

and also a very poor friend, considering that he didn't even bother to

go back to help her when he showed up near the end of the story

. As the spymaster, Ren was mostly there to provide exposition and no actual support. It was up to Tris, a random healer who had mostly lived in a secluded enclave and then a small village, to do most of the work of spying, communicating and rescuing, and he did it unbelievably well. 
2. The lack of well developed female characters aside from Rialla - this does not feel like a book that would pass the Bechdel test. 

The infographics were visually appealing and the information helpful, but presentation felt dry - the biographies lacked interesting narrative detail and a lot of pages felt like a litany of facts connected by the progression of years

Did not enjoy this as much as the first book. The two fun elements were Emerson's and Amelia's banter, as well as the brief appearance of Ramses. The elements which were more tedious to read to were the rigidity in Amelia's thinking and judgement in terms of race and sex - it makes sense in terms of the period that she lived in, but wasn't particularly relevant to the plot. 

For that matter, there was a lot of elements that wasn't relevant to the plot and dragged it out. For example, Amelia had a tendency to suspect everyone and mentally review the suspects repeatedly. The side characters were very colorful but didn't really do anything of use, so I didn't really care about what happened to them (it felt like Emerson and Amelia didn't care either - their reaction to one of the deaths was just to shrug and go "that might change my theory of who the murderer is"). An absolutely bizarre dance performance was set up by Emerson at one point for no good reason. The villain seemed to be everywhere doing everything at once. Lastly, Amelia and Emerson were unnecessarily careless, to he point that they could have killed each other and other people more than once.

A cute, relaxing little read with lovely illustrations 

Enjoyable - found the storytelling good and the characters likable. The depiction of Victorian era Egypt could be seen as a tad dated, but overall did not detract from the quality of this read