elizlizabeth's Reviews (242)

The concept behind this book is novel I guess, and Meira gives off some snarky protagonist vibes which I like but then her sense of humor and the whole love triangle crash a little with the seriousness of the topics in the plot. Ultimately this made the book land flat to me. There are many trope situations, which don't make sense for the plot or character growth.
A problematic approach to race and holocaust and genocide doesn't help. I don't mean for every book to be "morally correct" but this is a fantasy book published in the 2010s, I would expect for the genre to grow past "pale people good, brown people bad" dichotomy. Most of Meira's "strong independent woman" attitude feels performative because the rest of female characters are flat and typically femenine, with Meira even criticizing them at times.
This definitely needed more time in the oven because it feels like it had potential but as it is, I won't be continuing the saga.

I read this with no prior knowledge of greek myth and honestly I expected to like it more. I had a lot of issues with the character development and could never get into the romance side of this as a result.
The way war as an overarching theme is portrayed is also bland and leads nowhere. Not that all retellings must also be a criticism but given the hype I expected at least a more nuanced view and instead got a pendulum of "war is bad when it kills my friends" and "war is fun when I get to be the killing one".

It took me a few pages to really get immersed but once I did, it was like reading my own soul. Kudos to the LeGuin.

The prompt sounded interesting, but the execution was that of a much more inexperienced writer. The similes and message are weakly explored (shut up with the palimpset ffs) and the love story feels forced and dilutes Addie as a character.
Maybe it could've improved with some editing but as it is, it felt bland and predictable.

The plot is much more interesting than the first book, but honestly I can't sympathize with Alina no matter how hard I try, and as she's the one telling the story it's torture to listen to her rationalizing her stupid-ass decisions and how "everyone at this farmer's market palace wants me carnally". She kept rationalizing all of her dumb decisions, deciding they were dumb and going through with them anyway... ugh.
At one point I honestly just stayed for Nikolai, as Alina and Mal seemed to have given all of their braincells to him, the one person with a functioning neural network

Nothing but respect for my Thirst Queen, imagine going through an entire tetralogy just to get some.

This is one of the most heartwarming, fluffy romances I've had the privilege to read. Highly recommend if you wanna cure your depression, clear your skin and water your crops. 

It was a fun re-read, I've mostly forgotten about Night Vale canon by now but I could understand the plot good enough.
On the downside, some of the "emotional" bits landed flat for me, some of the insights given on the book were condescending and distasteful. Also, the minor characters' stories weren't as interesting or relevant to be included imo, especially for a standalone.

Bit confusing but a very cozy read.