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elzbethmrgn's Reviews (667)
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Wow I did not enjoy this, and now that I've logged into Goodreads to review it and can see it won a bajillion awards, I am confused.
It's the writing style that bugs me most of all; it's all clunky. Exposition, character development, worldbuilding, fight scenes, dialogue.
Points for not being a white psuedo-medieval psuedo-Europe setting, which is why I picked up the book in the first place, but I only finished it because I'd paid full price for it.
It's the writing style that bugs me most of all; it's all clunky. Exposition, character development, worldbuilding, fight scenes, dialogue.
Points for not being a white psuedo-medieval psuedo-Europe setting, which is why I picked up the book in the first place, but I only finished it because I'd paid full price for it.
My kidling picked this up, after a bookstore recommended it for 12-15 year olds, and the cover is pretty so I had a crack at it too.
It is actually pretty meaty for something aimed at the Y in YA (and I do think it sits in the 12+ range), and I enjoyed this particular re-telling of Young Person whisked away from their unhappy home life to discover a bigger world and their place within it.
I'm happy to leave this story as a stand-alone; I'm not in the mood for the next entry,Young Person apprentices to Crotchety Master .
It is actually pretty meaty for something aimed at the Y in YA (and I do think it sits in the 12+ range), and I enjoyed this particular re-telling of Young Person whisked away from their unhappy home life to discover a bigger world and their place within it.
I'm happy to leave this story as a stand-alone; I'm not in the mood for the next entry,
Muir sure invested in a thesaurus, didn't she?
Such hype around this book, which rarely bodes well. A decent, if overwhelmingly teen-angsty, beginning, but then the plot went walkabout without me until about half-way through (which is where our protagonist stops being a total ball of angst and instead becomes a tolerable teenager). Ultimately the story wound up into a tidy lead-in to the sequel, which I have no interest in reading. HOWEVER, how amazing is it to see a same-gender attracted character and her sexual orientation have exactly zero bearing on the story?
I listened to the audio version, which had superb narration by Moira Quirk, and I would recommend it highly if you're ok with being super confused as to who every one is for a good long while.
Such hype around this book, which rarely bodes well. A decent, if overwhelmingly teen-angsty, beginning, but then the plot went walkabout without me until about half-way through (which is where our protagonist stops being a total ball of angst and instead becomes a tolerable teenager). Ultimately the story wound up into a tidy lead-in to the sequel, which I have no interest in reading. HOWEVER, how amazing is it to see a same-gender attracted character and her sexual orientation have exactly zero bearing on the story?
I listened to the audio version, which had superb narration by Moira Quirk, and I would recommend it highly if you're ok with being super confused as to who every one is for a good long while.
A delicious little morsel of fun in a world that I love, with the Five-God theology I really enjoy.
Obviously I put this on hold at my library because of the controversy surrounding Pascoe earlier this year and the general culture wars over this book since its release. I listened to the audio version, so I can't evaluate things like if it has citations, or the quality of Pascoe's sources.
I had no issue with the book itself, although it greatly annoyed me when Pascoe used the same word twice in a sentence (I can't think of any without the text to refer to, but sentences like "the area was peopled with people from..."). He did stray into romanticising the Indigenous 'way of life' towards the end.
Overall, it doesn't suck. I can't see anything controversial in here. Pascoe continually highlights that more research into Australia's Indigenous history needs to be funded and he is not wrong.
However, I can absolutely urge authors to put aside some money and pay a professional to narrate their monograph, if they aren't practised performers.
I had no issue with the book itself, although it greatly annoyed me when Pascoe used the same word twice in a sentence (I can't think of any without the text to refer to, but sentences like "the area was peopled with people from..."). He did stray into romanticising the Indigenous 'way of life' towards the end.
Overall, it doesn't suck. I can't see anything controversial in here. Pascoe continually highlights that more research into Australia's Indigenous history needs to be funded and he is not wrong.
However, I can absolutely urge authors to put aside some money and pay a professional to narrate their monograph, if they aren't practised performers.