reubenalbatross's Reviews (521)

Ooof, this book has issues. One of the most egregious being a privileged American with Indian heritage writing about some of the poorest and most problematic elements of rural Indian culture. When I first started noticing the lack of authenticity in Shroff’s voice, I did some research on her background. From the information I’ve been able to find, Shroff does have relatives in India and visits somewhat regularly, but her family seem pretty well off and live in a big city – meaning she has no lived, or really even any close to lived, experience of the rural villages she is writing about. 

It's also very telling that the 2 reviews in the top 20 on Goodreads that are from obviously own-voice readers are critical of this. From Srivalli Rekha’s review on Goodreads: 

And the fact that Shroff was using this setting to talk about so many aspects of women’s rights/oppression just made this inauthenticity feel even more shallow. As an English person, if an American who had grown up wealthy in America, but had English parents, wrote a book about one of the poorest parts of England and essentially turned it into poverty porn, I’d be mightily pissed off. The same applies here. 

Aside from this, there were plenty of other issues, including: 

The opening chapter was INSANELY fatphobic for no reason. In the scene, the only one of the four women who is described physically in detail is the fat one, and it’s almost talked about like it's a moral failing. She “blotted her upper lip with the back of her wrist. Fresh sweat bloomed quickly.”?? There are multiple references to how she used to be 'slender', and the writing definitely equates this with her being a nicer person in the past. 

Every time she’s mentioned in the first 6 pages her weight is brought up, again, FOR NO REASON. In comparison, we barely get any physical description of the main character, let alone the other two women. She’s also the most villainised of the four, which really just adds salt to the wound. And 33% into the book there hasn’t been a lick of commentary about these thoughts being problematic, so clearly Shroff just thinks she used totally acceptable descriptions. Gross. 

I never figured out when the book was set. The first three chapters had information that implied it was set in the 80s, but then in chapter 4 it’s mentioned Geeta used a mobile phone almost 20 years in the past? So it must be modern day? But 138 pages in I’m still not 100% certain when it’s set. No modern technology has been mentioned apart from that one liner about mobiles. I've googled pretty much every 'real life' thing mentioned (from rupee exchange rates, to laws, to celebrities), and it’s definitely not any earlier than the 90s. But it shouldn't be this difficult to work out! I shouldn't have to do a deep dive to figure out when a book is set. 

I was also very confused by the loan situation. For such a pillar of the book, Shroff really didn’t explain it enough. We’re literally told Saloni is rich, and Geeta has a pretty sizeable amount of savings (10x the weekly loan amount), so why do either of them need the loan?? If they only need this relatively small amount of money for their businesses, why can’t they just use their own money? Especially Geeta, with no-one to hold her back. 

And finally, the characters are really nasty people who dart between emotions at the drop of a hat for no reason. It made conversations extremely hard to follow, and I never got invested as they’re all so vile. 
 
Not for me, thanks. 

 

11% in and I can’t continue with this, it’s enraging me. Most of it was as a British person being annoyed by an American’s poor attempt at writing Welsh characters. The writing is also SO bloated, it definitely needed more editing. 

This is the list of things that annoyed me most in the 29 pages I read: 

Rhys (Welsh character) talking about it raining –- 

This is NOT how we use ‘pissing’ – it is always ‘pissing it down’, the rain doesn’t start ‘pissing down’.  

Pubs in the UK don’t have open bowls of snacks these days, and never in my 27 years of life living in the UK have I seen one, especially in a country pub. 

In one sentence describing Rhys' father's study –- 

The very next paragraph –- 

Which one is it?? 

Rhys’ father chiding Rhys for how long he’s been away – 

There's truly no fucking difference??? What is there for Rhys to be annoyed about in that? Half a year is just as normal as six months, maybe even more so! 

Really, calling someone who’s probably only your great-grandparent an 'ancestor'? That’s not normal. 

1. A British person would never call it that, especially using 'salute' 

2. This is a middle finger moment, none of that bullshit two finger nonsense. 

It's definitely not worth me pushing through this for what, as far as I can see, is an extremely mediocre book. Farewell. 

I really thought this book would be good. Yes, it’s popular with the ‘masses’, which is usually a sure sign I’ll hate a book, but I’ve also seen many people who align with my tastes give it 5 stars, so I had pretty high hopes. Oh boy, was I disappointed. 

This book is not what it’s sold as, not what I think Islington thought he was writing. It isn’t any sort of complex, grand fantasy like Tad Williams or John Gwynne. It’s a (pretty poorly written) YA 2010s dystopian story with underdeveloped fantasy elements thrown into the mix. It’s just recycled tropes repackaged in flimsy Roman inspired packaging. 

The beginning was one of the clunkiest openings I’ve ever read. Loads of worldbuilding was shoved pretty unceremoniously into the first two chapters, but I still didn't understand what was going on. However, the structure of the world did seem pretty complex, so I was willing to give all of this some grace if it improved as the book went on. It didn’t. The magic was never properly explained, even though it was an essential part of the plot, and the info dumps only got slightly less obtrusive. 

The info dumps were certainly not helped by the book being written in first person. Sharing information in first person can be done, but takes a lot more skill than Islington apparently has. The story would be trucking along nicely, then for literally no other reason than to tell the reader something, Vis goes on a detailed inner monologue ramble about the basic concepts of a world he would NEVER have to actually think about. When he was around other people, talking to them, and actually learning new things the problem decreased, but it was pretty horrendous at the beginning. 

The main character being called Vis really fucked me off. Three letter names that are clearly rip-offs of Vin from Mistborn are so prevalent in modern fantasy writing, and for what reason??? Is it really so hard to have an ounce of originality??? The nail in the coffin, as is often the case, being that Mistborn is literally mentioned on the dustjacket as one of Islington’s inspirations… There’s inspiration, then there’s blatant copying. 

Coming on to the writing style – it’s pretty goddamn bad. Some of it is insanely repetitive for no reason. For example, the following are the last sentences from three consecutive chapters: 

Would it kill to have just a teeny bit of variation?? 

It was also just incredibly clunky. Sometimes I can find adjusting to a new writing style takes a bit of time, but 360 pages in I still felt it, so it clearly wasn’t a me problem. For example: 

It’s sentences like this that are a lot of the problem. So many extra words that are completely unnecessary and ruin the flow. 

Then coming to the plot, in which everything was WAY too easy for Vis. He just breezes through everything, and every idea he has works out well for him, which should definitely not be the case in a world that is totally against him on all sides. Even when something does go wrong, it still ends up working to his advantage, and by the half-way point of the book I knew everything was going to turn out fine, so the stakes were non-existent. The one quote from Vis that tipped me over the edge was:

Yeah, LIKE YOU ARE ALL THE TIME, yet he says it completely sincerely, and like nothing ever goes right for him. This all compounded into a lot of depth being missing from the book, as I never felt any tension, even during events Islington was trying to make the reader believe were life or death. 

The plot as a whole was also pretty unbelievable. It was absolutely wild that we were meant to believe that all of this secret ruin stuff had never been leaked. Big fuck off massive buildings on a relatively empty island, full of some of the brightest kids in the country, and no-one apart from Ulciscor has thought to investigate them?? And the only person to successfully get past these crazily heighted security measures was our special, perfect, not like the other boys 17-year-old with two months of training?? Insane. 

As soon as I got to the part about the injured puppy, my eyes audibly rolled into the back of my brain. Without a SHADOW of a doubt, I know it’s going to end up being Vis’ bestest friend in the whole wide world. SUCH an overdone trope at this point. This, combined with the reveal of the labyrinth being training for whatever is in that cavern, was the last straw for me. I’ve got too many good books to read to waste any more time on this poorly written rehashing of every fantasy book ever written. 
 
I’d say I’m baffled by the wall of 5-star reviews this book has received, but unfortunately, in reality I’m not all that surprised. From reviews, as is quite common for popular books, this was a lot of peoples 'first proper fantasy', which explains the worryingly rave reviews. It’s like baby's first fantasy. Even so, reading these 5-star reviews is actually quite concerning - one of the best books you’ve ever read??? Most of them are about the 'amazing ending', and I know from past experience that shock endings can really affect how someone initially rates a book. 

Talking of the ending, I did spoil myself, and my god am I happy I DNF’d. If nothing else makes it obvious that this book belongs in the depths of the 2010s, that sure did. 

Overall, this book has a truly great premise, and one that I was really hoping to love, but a completely lacklustre everything else. I didn’t completely hate what I did read of it. Some of the plot points were really interesting, the twists shocking at times, and if the magic system had actually been fleshed out properly, I think I’d really like it. Unfortunately, it really needed more time to cook, and honestly probably another round of editing. I can excuse one or more of the criticisms I’ve highlighted above if the rest of the book is strong, but this one gave me absolutely nothing. 

Fuck ME this was AMAZING. I’m constantly in awe of Williams’ writing, and how he manages to elevate his craft with each instalment of this series. In my opinion, this was a flawless book. 

**SPOILERS INCOMING** 

The only issue I had with the story was almost completely of my own making, and I don’t think Williams can really be blamed for it. And that was the developing relationship between Nezeru and Morgan. As I progressed through these three books, and put together who Nezeru is, I was expecting more of a family reunion vibe when the two of them met – I’d read so much about their families and how they were interlinked, it seemed inevitable. How wrong I was… This meant that when they first shagged I was completely horrified, until I figured out how distantly related they actually are and realised its not that big of a deal. I think in my head I had been so set on the family reunion idea that it obscured the reality of the situation. 

But my God does this book (and series) smash almost all other fantasy out of the water. It’s so beautifully written, has incredible amounts of depth, and is overall such an amazing and unique read. 

Everything about Utuk’ku dying was fascinating. The Norns will only survive if they change their ways, but their entire existence is based on being fiercely loyal to their ways and never straying. The cognitive dissonance this creates, leading Nezeru and other Norns to essentially deprogramme from their cult was SO interesting. 

Simon’s death was traumatic. I felt like I’d lost a friend. Definitely spiralled a little at that point and almost went into mourning. And his and Miriamele’s Romeo and Juliet death storylines were so beautifully tragic. 

I was also (and still am after reading) utterly fucking terrified over the prospect of Pryrates returning. It’s the most freaked out a character has ever made me, and I read loads of horror. It was truly making me feel sick at points, and every time there was the chance that something was him my heart stopped still. The tunnels, aghhhhh. If Williams ever switches to pure horror novels, I think it might be game over for me. Either Williams is a genius, or I’m putting way too much ‘hope’ into the prospect of a Pryrates return… 

And that God damn ‘battle’ at Asu’a. Holy Christ. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything that could come close to how it made me feel. I was literally there with the characters, close to hyperventilating, tears streaming. I felt the desperations, pain, and abject terror so acutely. I almost never react emotionally during battle scenes, usually only when they’re over, but Williams really got to me, and destroyed me. 

This quote before the Sithi joined the fight really got to me: 

“What can we do?” 

“What can true hearts ever do?" Jiriki asked. "Whatever good they can manage before the end of things." 😭😭😭

So, there we have it. Another masterpiece from Williams. Would give it 100 stars if I could. An amazing series, and one I’m pretty scared to end – the name of it leaves a constant haze of dread over the story, especially when I think ahead to how it may end… 

This book had SO much potential, and unfortunately didn’t quite live up to it. 

Throughout, I really appreciated the discussions on gender identity. I’d never appreciated that eunuch = gender nonconformity. This book made me realise this link within a few lines, and how gender nonconformity really has been around as long as humanity has been in existence. 

There’s also so much subtext, with so many ideas/meanings/comments on humanity in every paragraph - and they're all implied, not said straight out. Almost all of the writing, especially at the beginning, was all show, no tell, which I LOVED. There really is such depth in Parker-Chan’s writing, and her writing style is truly beautiful. 

The beginning section was absolutely amazing, and I had really high hopes. However, as the story progressed, the repetitive fighting and wresting cities from one another got really stagnant and tires towards the end. I lost a lot of interest in where the story was going. 

This also wasn’t helped that as the story progressed, things just kept getting skipped over. I feel like the time jump after the monastery made sense, but other times we were just told important plot developments, rather than experiencing them ourselves. It took a lot of the emotion and impact out of the story. 

I also wasn't completely convinced by Zhu's motivations towards the end. I get that she’s on an evil arc, but we're never told WHY she wants power so much. After it helped her get out of abject poverty, the reasons we were given in the beginning of the book became moot. And then we're never told why she wants to keep going, only that she wants to. Even if it were for nefarious reasons I wouldn't have an issue, but it’s hard to understand why she’s willing to do all this shitty stuff, just to be emperor. No other reason. We're never told what she thinks is so great about power after it’s helped her initially. 
 
So yeah, overall, a promising book that unfortunately fizzled out. I will most likely read the next instalment though. Hopefully it has fewer military shenanigans… 

I thought the Noise would be good via audio, and I was right. It added a great element to the experience. 

My overall experience was slightly ruined because I remember most of the big twists, which is one of the bigger reasons for this not being a full 5-stars. 

But its absolutely awesome to know that a book I first read and loved so long ago still holds up. And what a banger of an ending – I’m so glad I hadn’t remembered it. Not enough books end in disaster these days. 

I was recommended this book as I was looking for diverse fantasy stories. Unfortunately, it isn't written well at all.

The writing is so basic, with clunky worldbuilding, bizarre tense useage, and is overall uninspired. Does not read naturally at all.

I also didn't like that only 10 pages in it had already been really prejudice against the poor people in the city, for seemingly no reason. The first PoV character is advised to not go to the poor areas as he'll be robbed, and that all 'lowly' taverns are horrible, violent places. Not great.

Also, bearing in mind the author is white, I did find it a little uncomfortable that the black elves had actual black skin (described as 'obsidian'), rather than human 'black' skin i.e. brown. 

All in all, not something I want to waste my time on. So glad I didn't pay full price for my copy (£17!). 

Wow. What a book. So beautifully written, and so existential. 

The only reason this isn’t a 5-star read is for three REALLY annoying points. All three really should have been picked up by an editor, and I don’t know if Harpman or Schwartz is to blame in the first instance, but they infuriated me. In a book where every single item the women used was really important, and described in detail (especially within the bunker), the following mistakes/omissions really should not have made it through the edit: 

1.       It was never said what they used as a stove in the cage, which, again, is wild to me because it was literally one of two fixtures in their cell. It says that they cooked in big pots, and could only boil food. She doesn’t ever mention a source of heat in relation to suicide attempts, so I assume it wasn’t fire/gas, which only leaves electric. But even then, some variation besides boiling their food would have been possible? Frying with water? Food directly on the heat source? They had literally nothing else to do in there, surely they could have been a little more creative? Every other cooking fire/stove in the book was mentioned in detail, but not the most important one.  

2.       Towards the end she finds a bar of soap, and doesn’t know she has to wet her hands to use it. That would have been fine and well if she hadn’t already told us multiple times that they had a stable supply of soap at all times??? There’s no mention of the soap in the bunker being a different kind, so why the sudden complete ignorance of how to use it? She also uses it to wash her hair, and her thoughts about it make it seem like she/the women had never done that before. Why the fuck not? 20-ish years, and not 1 of 40 women thought to wash their hair with soap? I know their brains were a bit fucked, but come on? 

3.       In this same scene she also finds a mirror, and states “I had never seen myself”. Excuse me?? A still pan of water in sunlight is plenty to be able to see yourself and your “expressions”, which apparently she’d never seen before?? Again, that number of women, that amount of time, surely someone would have thought of that??? 

Clearly, the fact that these points only knocked .25 stars off my rating show how much I truly loved this book. A stunner and a half. 

What happened Samantha?? The Priory of the Orange Tree was SO good, this pales so tragically in comparison. 

I made it 150 pages into this and couldn’t make myself go any further. I even checked reviews to see if my trepidations were just the result of a slow start and would improve as the book progressed, but no. 

I am not exaggerating when I say 50% of this book is just Shannon info-dumping lore, and the other  50% is wildly confusing descriptions of the characters actions mixed with mind-numbing descriptions of scenery. 

I’d say the info-dumping is at a pretty similar level to that of Priory, but it was enjoyable in that book because I didn’t know anything about the world, and the other elements of the book were really strong. However, having read Priory, everything in here feels WAY too similar to be discussing it in so much detail. This is definitely not helped by the fact that two of the three locations/communities we’re in are EXACTLY the same as Priory. There are so many other interesting kingdoms/queendoms/republics that could have been focussed on instead, why are we just getting a repeat of Priory?? This has also meant that a lot of the discussions and themes in here mirror those of Priory to an infuriating extent – I felt like I was almost reading a retelling of Priory, not a book set 500 YEARS before it. 

Then the other half of the problem is the descriptions. In Priory Shannon used really lush descriptive writing. One of my favourite things about that book is that there was so much description. Yet here, all of the descriptive writing is so basic, so stripped down. It feels clinical, and alongside the walls of history Shannon throws at us, it really just reads like a textbook. Adding to this is the fact that in this first 150 pages there has been absolutely nothing of substance in the conversations or emotions of any of the characters, it’s just – ‘we did this’, ‘we did that’, ‘oh no I have to get pregnant’. Where’s the DEPTH?? 

It also doesn’t help that the ‘plot’ has been moving ridiculously quickly. There will be one sentence that mentions something vaguely interesting, then the next we’ve jumped to a completely different topic/scene/action with no follow-up. And because I wasn’t getting enough substance about the characters, none of their decisions made sense to me, especially in the Priory chapters – the extent of their character motivation was ‘Siya is an untrustworthy child, bad Siyu’. And in turn this all meant I didn’t like any of the characters or want to root for them, and I certainly didn’t care about their motivations/story lines. 

This disconnect from the characters was also impacted by the fact that all three locations have literally the same storyline. Three young women about to come into power, all of which are reluctant to do so. And there’s SO much about pregnancy in all three of them. 

The final nail in the coffin was how unclearly Shannon wrote most of the action (by this I mean anything that wasn't info-dump or scenery description). It read like she was trying to be poetic, but all it led to was most of the description being too abstract to make any sense. She was obviously trying to infer things and ‘show not tell’, but I could hardly understand any of it. 

Overall, what an utter shame. I was entranced by The Priory of the Orange Tree. This, on the other hand, reads like a history textbook. 

This was just weird… and not in a good way. 

One of the main problematic elements of this was that the audiobook narrator sounds like a 60+ year-old man, whereas the main male character is a 30ish-year-old hot, hot, hottie. This meant that I could only ever think of Ryan as a grouchy old man, making the ‘romance’ stuff with Anna feel ever grosser than it already was. 

It also meant the ‘romance’ stuff felt really creepy because it meant there was a LOT of a 60-year-old man reading a 30-year-old man’s sexual thoughts about a young woman AND a 60-year-old man reading a young woman’s sexual thoughts about a 30-year-old dude. All very weird. 

And then it comes to the actual ‘romance’ itself, which was just disturbing. Ryan’s possessive thoughts about Anna after knowing her for LESS THAN 24 HOURS are nothing short of psychotic. She should be running for the hills. He got blazingly angry finding out that she has had partners in the past?? 

Not to mention the two of them making out pretty much the second they find out her sister is probably dead??? I don’t care if they both wanted it, and that they were both aware it was wrong, it was still gross. And the language used throughout was also insanely gross – “plundered her mouth”??? Blurgh. 

And lawd what a misogynistic, judgemental dick Ryan is. Not a single part of me could root for, or even care about him, in any way. 

The actual mystery of the book did seem interesting, but in no way does it make up for the fucked up ‘romance’, constant weird sexual overtones, Ryan being an utter dick, and generally judgemental writing from the author. All of which was then compounded by the absolutely fucking bizarre and gross choice of audiobook narrator. If I didn’t know this book was written by a woman, I would be 100% certain that a male incel had written it. 

No. Thank. You.