booksthatburn's Reviews (1.46k)

MAGIC BLEEDS finds Kate furious at Curran and trying to keep doing her job with almost no support from the Order as a guy in a cloak skewers the toughest guys in town and panics crowds. 

The worldbuilding focuses on character work and backstory, with a bit of deep lore tossed in. Something that has been a welcome but minor note until this point in the series has been the casual mentions of the existence of gay (male) characters generally, with the boudas (were-hyenas) as a queerer zone than the rest due to the influence of hyena their beast forms onto the rest of their society. This book sees a longer and more explicit discussion of queerness (specifically gay men, again) which makes it clear that while it might be unusual in the Pack it doesn't seem to carry a stigma in the new generation. Even Saiman, described as a sexual deviant throughout the series, is labeled such because of the way he approaches sex as a conquest and an experiment, not because he changes forms like outfits to accomplish it.

This isn’t a series that tends to wrap up anything definitively. Things progress, but at this point in the series anything that’s unrelated to the main crisis (and even some things which are) will have follow-ups in later books. It alleviates the pressure on any one plot thread, because there’s room for more later, and enough of a status check to keep things in play. The new storyline is a series of magically-enhanced attacks on locations filled with fighters. The cause of the attacks serves to advance a main storyline in a new way, and the attacks themselves are introduced and resolved within this book. Some major things are left for later, and I like the new status quo which is established by the ending. Kate is still the narrator, and while her narrative voice is consistent with the previous book she’s also changing as a character (gaining friendships and people to protect will do that). This wouldn’t make much sense if someone started here without reading the previous books. The cold open in particular is a response to the end of the last book, and even though I’ve read the previous books and this one several times before, it’s still emotionally jarring in a way that would be either off-putting or confusing to someone using this as their entry point into the series.

This has one of my favorite main plots and least favorite opening in the series. The magically-enhanced plagues, the person behind them, and Kate’s moment of decision with the Order are excellent. There's a discussion of the merits of incremental change within a flawed system versus leaving to make something new that isn't broken for everyone involved. I dislike the opening, though I must begrudgingly acknowledge that this mix of misunderstanding and stubbornness which characterizes the interpersonal conflict that suffuses the first half of the book is entirely in keeping with Kate and Curran's personalities. I dislike it so much as a terrible way for the characters to behave that I have trouble assessing how well it does or doesn't work in the narrative. The way things resolve is appropriate and dramatic, and I appreciate the way that Kate's conduct shows how much she's grown as a person thus far in the series.

There's an excellent sequence with Saiman, Kate, and Curran which goes rather terribly for Saiman but which displays his glass cannon of a personality. He's good at a list of very specific things, and when he meets something his money cannot obtain for him he becomes willing to break everything to prove that he can have it (or if he can't then no one will). There were hints of it in previous books, but it comes to a head here in a pretty spectacular manner.

After Derek is attacked, Kate is pulled into the secret world of the Midnight Games to find out what's behind a mysterious new team.

There’s a lot of new worldbuilding related to the Midnight Games and recent shapeshifter history, but otherwise this leans on details established earlier (with a bit of new Roland lore, as usual). The Games and the background of the Reapers are complex enough to be substantial contributions to the setting, so I don’t think this is missing anything on the worldbuilding front. It follows the trend of dealing heavily in folklore from a specific part of the world (the in-universe explanation is that magical things from similar pantheons or regions tend to clump together when they manifest). 

This is a pivotal moment in the series, it changes the status quo on several fronts (or at least makes clear things which were developing already but weren't yet concisely shown). It contains two of my favorite moments from the early books: Kate's retrieval of Julie from school, and Raphael's first big move in his courtship. The way the shapeshifters court provides a lot of the lighter moments in an otherwise pretty traumatic series, and that begins in earnest with this book. 

This continues several things from the previous books but I can’t think of any which are completely resolved here. There’s a new storyline which makes sense in light of prior events but is mostly contained here. The ending specifically leaves several things to be continued later. The main character is still Kate, and her voice is consistent with the previous book. This could mostly make sense if someone started here and hadn’t read either of the previous books, but this series has an antagonistic slow-burn romance at the core of it, and while I don’t think it is a toxic relationship, it’s definitely one which would feel weird if this book were your introduction to it. The main plot about the Midnight Games is clear enough to be understandable without knowledge from prior books. 

I enjoy a lot of moments here but it isn't my favorite overall. Since it deals with the newly introduced and relatively insular world of the Games, it feels like it's a bit set apart from the books that come before and after it. It's an inflection point, critical in the sequence but odd relative to what surrounds it.

I like how much of the early worldbuilding revolves around the grimoires and the propaganda Elisabeth was taught about sorcerers. The way Nathaniel leans into her negative assumptions without actually doing anything to hurt Elisabeth or anyone else means that she learns a lot about the kind of person he is by how he reacts to being misunderstood. It's a wonderful bit of worldbuilding-as-characterization and I love how it works out. He lets her think awful things without trying to defend himself, then when she realizes those assumptions don't match how he's actually behaving it gives her an opportunity to realize she was wrong about him. It's a dynamic that repeats itself throughout the book, gradually receding as they learn to trust each other and communicate more forthrightly. One of my other favorite things in the worldbuilding is how the narration assumes the reader has a starting point in that world, specifically of a person growing up in one of the Great Libraries. Once she leaves, Elisabeth learns some of the outside world's differences in a way that enhances the worldbuilding and teaches about her as a character. If she's startled that the world was one way then it implies that her experience of the Library was different in a specific manner. Immersive worldbuilding is a favorite of mine, and this perfectly fit the kind I like.

Silas is enjoyable as a character whose present form is unassuming but could absolutely fuck someone up if a different version of himself is let loose (Think Mogget from The Old Kingdom books by Garth Nix, but if he liked working). 

I thought the first half was just fine (except for the worldbuilding, which was excellent) and then I loved the ending. I didn't enjoy the matrons speculating about Nathaniel's sexuality, and while the resolution of his identity came though his own telling, it felt a bit off.

Nathaniel doesn't want to be treated as a stud for his bloodline (completely understandable) so he turns away hordes of eligible women. Their mothers are upset and speculate that he might be gay (because obviously it must be he doesn't want a woman at all, not that he doesn't want any of their daughters). It made the reveal that he likes men and women feel a bit like Elisabeth is the exception that proves the rule. On the one hand, I'm excited for a bi character getting a m/f relationship because his queerness isn't dependent on his partner's identity. On the other hand, it made it feel like he's bi so that the narrative can tease his dynamic with Silas. There's no jealousy from Elisabeth on their intimacy, which I appreciated, but altogether it left me unable to enjoy Elisabeth and Nathaniel as much as I wanted.

The audiobook performance (particularly for Silas) perfectly fits each character and really enhanced the story. The plot noticeably had distinct stages (not in a bad way). It's a long enough book to have several points of tension and rest, with the danger escalating in a way that felt appropriate to the world and to what the characters had already faced. There were a couple of points in the latter half where things had been so dramatic that I thought maybe it was about to pull a cliffhanger, but the ending is very satisfying and comes at an appropriate point in the pacing. 

I enjoyed this and am very excited for a sequel if one materializes. It's listed as a series so I'm hopeful.