competencefantasy's Reviews (912)

Note: This is only a review for how I imprinted on characters, not on the book as an issue book. For the topical/setting/issue aspects of the book and how they interact with how big this particular author has become please join me in seeking out black reviewers, especially those with similar experience. I am in no way qualified to talk about the representation or the choice of topics and plot points, and plan to read up on those reviews as they come out. 

The main character in this book was the standout character from a The Hate U give for me, so I was delighted to see him get more page time. I imprinted on him as a father character and for the clear love he showed his family. It is a real challenge to get me to imprint on father characters, so that's impressive by itself. That's always been one of Angie Thomas's strengths for me. She's amazing at making me feel the love that her characters feel, showing me their interconnections. She's also shown in this that she can do what I wish some of my favorite other author could do, and write a prequel where the characters are clearly earlier in their development but still feel like themselves. There's so much about her writing style that I would love to see others replicate.

Oh and the audiobook performance was very effective for me as well (though I'm not qualified to evaluate any dialect aspects).

This book does a lot of things I like. There's a cast of characters, each with their own personality and arc. There's a healthy level of satire for Christian symbolism and cosmology. There's a library, with lots of weird rules and subversion of tropes. There's even a nice fast pace. I still feel like it might be missing just a little magic, but that could be because I had some personal stuff in the middle of reading it and had to start and stop. 

BTW there need to be some warnings for plot relevant 

suicide

. 

   | I think I need more nostalgia for all of this. As it is, I'm reading in a format I'm not familiar with, with a narrative I'm not familiar with, and it just made me want to play the game instead. If I had played the game before perhaps I would be noticing little expansions. Then again it's possible I'd notice it's just a straight up rehash. I think this was probably just too far outside my current interests. It did make me want to play the game though so it's not bad. 

We're here for the white witch. And maybe slightly for Aslan.