galacticvampire's Reviews (366)

The Raven King turns up a notch on it's tone, bringing a much darker and heavier narrative without being dissonant from the previous book.

The themes explored are very raw and not sanitized at all, portraying the complex way each of the characters deal with their own trauma. They are messy, and awful, and problematic, and many times make awful decisions, because each of them has different lines, morals, and experiences. Just like real people.

Neil Josten's narration is incredibly unique. Extremely dramatic and with skewed priorities, his personality shines in how and what he chooses to describe, managing to keep the reader engaged from petty interrelationship drama to bloody mafia life-or-death situations.

The Foxhole Court isn't for everyone. It has a unique style exclusive to books that didn't go through an editorial process, what can be either refreshing or amateurish, depending on personal taste.

It's different, the characters feel alive, and the plot is so surprising it's borderline nonsensical. The writing style is direct and portrays dialogue extremely naturally, until it doesn't and it's outright weird.

Because the characters are weird. And problematic. But that's clearly intentional and I have to give praise to the author for daring to give her characters unlikable flaws and make them genuinely morally questionable, completely unsanitazed.

The main problem with this book is that, given that is over 200 pages, not much happens. Space is taken by a lot of infodumping about the made-up sport and characters' backstories, that albeit necessary, are not integrated that seamlessly or naturally in the conversation. The result is that, by the end, the actual plot and story are still on very early stages, and the reader is seeking the next book as if it were simply the next chapter.