hollowistheworld's Reviews (105)

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Me: okay, there's a good to fair chance this is going to be a Girl Power story in which everyone thinks all that's needed for a female-led story is a pair of tits. But I'm intrigued by the space necromancers, so let's give it a whirl.
I was pleased - and more than a bit relieved - that Gideon felt real almost immediately, before she'd even spoken her first line. A little bit of a gremlin. A little obnoxious. A little well within her rights to be obnoxious because she's essentially a prisoner in her own home. 
I fell in love with the characters quickly. When we began to get the lore of the world, I fell even more quickly. Harrow was loveable and sympathetic, even while Gideon was stewing over how much she hated her. At the same time, I never felt like Gideon was being a brat for hating her. They felt real. They were people doing their best, and hating the people who were making it difficult. It's rare my initial trepidations about a book are proven wrong, and I'm so pleased to report that this time they were. I enjoyed every second of this ride, and I devoured the last half of the book with a ferocity I've rarely seen since I was in middle school. 

After several pirate history books spent with the author wringing their hands over the immorality of pirates, this was a breath of fresh air. Rediker says yes, they were violent - but no more so than the navy. They were not scholars, but that doesn't mean they stumbled blindly into democracy with no idea of what they were doing or why. Sexism was abundant, but it makes more logical sense that Anne Bonney and Mary Read had won respect for themselves than that they'd somehow hidden their identities as women from their crews while being known as women by their enemies. Pirates were, Rediker argues, as human as anyone else, and reacting to their circumstances just as anyone else would. 

We were off to a rough start when I realized this book was written in present tense (can be perfect for short stories, I rarely enjoy it for longer works). We were off to an even rougher start when the first thing we learned about our main character was that she likes morning sex. If I'd been flipping through in a bookstore, or trying out an audiobook, I'd have called it right there on page 15.
But I did spend money on this book, and it's been on my TBR for five years, so I muddled on. 
We proceeded to add casual sexism and workplace negging to the mix. Implications that every woman whose ever been is 'innocent'. And after that... it was just desperately boring. Every bad murder mystery story I've ever read blended together and dragged out for 500 pages. 
I got this book back when I was a subscriber to Book of the Month, and it is the latest entry on my 'thank God I canceled that subscription' list.

I love looks at history through new and niche lenses, and this did no disappoint. I will say that the audiobook narrator was rather dry for my tastes.

I really wanted to like this book. The concept is fantastic! But early on I found the characters difficult to care about, and it only went downhill from there. I made it to the affair - because the allosexuals are absolutely incapable of maintaining their morals when in vicinity of a hot person, apparently - and then started skipping ahead just to get some plot resolutions. Which was disappointing because the book finishes with plot holes you can run Nascar races through. 

It's funny how a good book can be harder to review than a bad one. This was a fantastic book. I had my doubts at the beginning, but each part that gave me doubts was later subverted. Things that seemed too coincidental were found to be lies. Characters that felt flat were learned to be playing a part. The pacing, the plot twists, and the world building were phenomenal. One of the best high fantasies I've read in a long, long time.