Imagine watching "How to Train Your Dragon", but randomly, without warning, the movie cuts to some of the most controversial moments in Game of Thrones. This book ought to have come with a trigger warning. I almost chalked it up as a Did Not Finish after page 130, but I checked the Goodreads ratings to see if I should give the book a chance to redeem itself... I read to the end, but I feel like the odd reviewer out; this book failed on many levels with me.

For starters, the Switching Point of View Characters mechanic did not work in this book. Not to name drop, but when another famous dragon enthusiast, GRR Martin, switched perspectives, it was always to propel the action and the timeline forward. But this book will give the exact same scene, with all five protagonists present, and describe every gesture and dialogue, no surprises. Or worse, will have all five protagonists undergo the exact same activity, with the same motivation, but in /separate/ chapters, so you feel as if you're reading the same scene five times over. There is nothing gained by naming the chapter after one of the characters in the scene. And sometimes two chapters for the same character are back to back, leaving me wondering if the author even knows what a chapter is at all. If you're not going to switch perspectives, why not simply have a page break? It feels as though the book would have benefitted greatly from scrapping the mechanic, and simply swapping perspectives within a single chapter, each chapter being a scene.

Another nitpicky negative, this book barely "dragons" before page 300. The major selling point is supposed to be the dragons. It has "Dragons" in the title. But the dragons are more often treated like horses, just tethered and left behind while the humans have their misadventures. Yes, okay, I think there is supposed to be a metaphor somewhere in how each of the competitors behaves a bit like a dragon(?). But I do not feel the cast of heroes lives up to the promise in the title, because 3/5 of them do not want to be a part of this tournament. They try to flee, or they mope and resign themselves to losing/dying; they allow the plot to simply happen around them/to them. They are rather boring to read about. The tournament may push them from obstacle to obstacle, but the majority of characters don't really take agency until somewhere past page 350. That's a long time to wait for a cast to DO something, and to hope that the audience is enthralled simply because "Ooo, dragons!"

But my big concern is the tonal whiplash of this book. Spoilers and triggers ahead. Sometimes this book is for children, and it joyfully describes a dragon race resulting in a firebreathing tussle which totally doesn't burn the dragonriders to a crisp, aren't cartoon physics fun. And then suddenly, this book is for adults of a particular constitution, describing the public vivisection of a little girl, or a boy whose eyes melted, or a young woman who was raped by her liege lord. These more mature moments appear without lead-in, and without respect. These scenes are thrown in like paragraphs of characterization: She had red hair, grey eyes, and feared having molten lead dribbled into her eye sockets. There is no sense that this book is trying to create a macabre atmosphere, or carry a central theme about suffering and redemption, or teach its target audience about how to endure through trauma - nope, these scenes simply...are. They /are/ there.
And I can't even rightly say that the characters are motivated by their trauma, because their motivations and characterization change sentence to sentence! In one scene, a girl will be both meek and brazenly spiteful. Or another character will worship structure and lawfulness, and then burn down a town. The list is long, and easily visible in my highlights, bottom line being that even after 400+ pages, I'm not sure I really /know/ these characters.

Which brings me, I think, to my final problem with this book: Its inspirations were obvious, but it does not live up to its predecessors. There were obvious allusions to Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, Eragon, How to Train Your Dragon, etc... So many, that it feels like the author really enjoys dragons, and wanted to have a fantasy book... but got burnt out writing one. Nostalgia doesn't make a story. Everything feels unpolished, and just reminds me that I could be reading something better.

The characters, setting, and magical system of this world are captivating and breathtaking. There is a sense that it's Not Quite Earth, everything feels familiar but a little off. Definitely some Avatar/Legend of Korra vibes, which is GREAT, I'm a huge fan of that universe.
However, the story centers heavily around a prophecy, which is a trope, it's been done and overdone. Plus side: The existence of prophecies in this universe is linked to prophets and an ancient, still popular, religion, which is very relatable! And the heroes come to the conclusion that prophecy or no prophecy, they're going to follow their hearts. Minus side: There is a HUGE chunk in the middle of the book where everybody is trying to follow the prophecy verbatim, and therefore nobody has any agency in their actions. All that great characterization and setting flies out the window as people do things they wouldn't ordinarily do to adhere to some mystic mumbo-jumbo (which is easy to misinterpret in the first place!).
I'm glad I stuck with the book until the end, and am excited to see how the series continues. But fair warning about that spot in the middle you have to trudge through to get back to the good stuff.

I turned to my husband at about the 300 page mark, and I said, "I feel like I'm playing YA Bingo." This book was HEAVY on the teen angst and melodrama, and very weak on the story. The whole premise of this sequel is that our ragtag group of allies is going to recruit /more/ allies, and then go kill Morgane. Spoiler alert, they don't really succeed at either. Instead, I lost count of the number of times characters:
- Lied or Lied-by-Omission to someone they care about "for their own good".
- Attempted to commit a self-sacrificing act, only to be admonished for acting a martyr, and then trying to /out/-sacrifice the person they admonished.
- Insisted they loved a character who was toxic for them.
- Hand-waved violence as a necessary evil to defeat a greater evil... only to falter and "refuse to stoop to their level" when confronted with said grander evil.
- Relied on prophecy/fortune telling/someone saying something is fated to come true.
- Hand-waved spying animal spirits, whispering woods, voices in their heads, and cryptic riddles from a wraith, a god, and the villainess herself, on the grounds that, "Meh, can't be that important, let's move on!"
- Got stuck in a self-deprecating mental/emotional spiral.
Everyone thinks they are worthless. Everyone is miserable and closed off from one another, a team in name only. Maybe that was the point, to show our heroes at rock bottom before they make a scrappy comeback in book 3? But it was painful to read 500+ pages of hopelessness and angst. Often the characters take agency in a sudden fistfight, but almost never do they take agency to /resolve a conflict/, which makes most of their pain self-inflicted.

On another note, what I loved most about the first book was that it took two people of disparate religions (a Christian and a Wiccan) and had them cautiously learn about each other, admit and work though their prejudices, and ultimately learn to love each other. That's a beautiful message: Other people have value; we can learn to be wise and caring without demonizing difference.
But this sequel seemed to go back on that message, adopting more of a conservative Christian stance. Women who practice witchcraft are doomed to madness. The lead witch, Lou, converts for a hot minute when hope seems lost, praying to God for help. Another spoiler alert: An actual to goodness Pagan nature god shows up... and is completely unhelpful, resulting in the death of an innocent. All of the magical characters in this story who /aren't/ Christian are bloodthirsty, sadistic, greedy, insane, or at the very least... apathetic. (Which, some people might argue that apathy is an Evil in its own right!) The Christian characters are lawful, compassionate, forgiving and courageous, even ret-conning foils from the previous book (like Jean-Luc and the Archbishop) to be sympathetic. Christians get redemption, magic-users get pain and suffering... It's a weird stance to take when you've made your audience fall in love with a witch heroine. Maybe I'm over-analyzing, but I personally was left uncomfortable and confused.

Finally, SPOILER SPOILER I HAVE BIG FEELINGS SPOILER, that nature god was Doctor Whovian levels of left-field silliness. First off, to confirm the existence of any god, and not just leave that to the realm of faith and interpretation, especially in a world with competing ideologies, seems like a cheesy misstep. Something in this magical place should be left... /magical/, wild and unknowable, beyond human comprehension. But then, to confirm that a third-party deity is real feels jarring. Imagine, Egyptians and Greeks arguing, "Anubis!" "Hades!" "Anubis!" "Hades!" and Mictlantecuhtli shows up and says, "Guys, guys, guys... Take a deep breath... Okay, bye." Yeah, can we talk about that? The god who shows up claims he can't interfere directly in people's lives, paralyzes Morgane, /releases/ Morgane, admonishes her with "Make better choices" and she responds with "Nope, murder! Hit-and-run!", and he... scuffs his foot and walks off to get a beer? Oh, and turn of the screw: O High and Mighty I'm Staying Out of It is Morgane's ex-boyfriend... How is being romantically involved with a mortal not the EPITOME of direct interference?! This god character was all over the place with his motivation and creed, and the book would have been stronger without him.

All in all, the book left me with no one to root for, no one I wanted to see succeed. And without a character to invest in... why read? Indeed, I walked away from this book many times, finding it too painful or nonsensical to read in big portions. And while I was ready to be done and move on, I was also reluctant to reach the end lest it tarnish my memory of the first book. I hope the third book can redeem the series for me :(.

What did I just read? XD

This book has largely gotten reviews as a comedic parody-mystery with some fantasy adventure thrown in. The cover would seem to suggest that a big, fantastical event is going to occur. The blurb which called this debut "Lemony Snicket for adults" was the whole reason I bought it, as I adore Mr. Snicket's absurdism, rewards for diligent readers, fourth-wall-breaking and philosophical commentary.

This book /has/ those elements... and yet it is /none/ of those things.

The parody of a mystery, where Our Heroine doesn't want to investigate the mystery, and a string of characters - including her - end up investigating her non-investigation as if it were the answer to the central mystery... is /cute/. It's a /cute/ joke, it got a chuckle. But after a couple hundred pages, you realize the various characters are going around in circles chasing nothing, and /you/ are being led to nothing, which is boring. If you're waiting for a break in the parody to provide conflict-resolution for the central mystery, you won't get it.

This story takes place in an alternate modern era, where Vikings were the primary colonial force and cultural influencer, and Norse mythology has some scraps of truth. There is a whole underground society, with a martial arts system inspired by the stealth of the arctic fox, its movements akin to ninjitsu. You would think the cultural differences of this alternate reality, and its clash with fox ninjas, would be plenty of meat for a story! Alas, these cool concepts are mostly background fodder. The big clash between surface and below is just a metaphor summed up in an afterword.

What, then, is this book? A mystery which doesn't resolve, a comedy which isn't that funny, an adventure which doesn't take action... In the end, what's left is all meta-commentary about the importance of perception and writing. It is the story of how we all have multiple biographies: What we know of ourselves, what we show of ourselves, and what other people interpret of us. The themes are reinforced by having multiple, fictional authors and investigators attempting to write about people or interpret the writings /of/ people. It's all very dizzying. There are brilliant insights into both writing and the human condition. But Writers Writing About Writing is SO pretentious. The fact that the central murder mystery is related to the cultural significance of writing is just... so... self-congratulatory. And I don't think this book did enough /else/ to merit its arrogance.

Finally, this book seemed to want to be an experiment in "feminine storytelling". The murder victim, Shirley, describes at one point how Western storytelling is masculine: It builds to a climax then ends. She imagined a feminine story structure: secretive, meandering, as much about what was withheld as what was obvious, leading to tiny, building rewards along its various subplots, until climaxing at perhaps multiple points, and then having a long denouement to resolve everything. After reading her description, and putting it together with the author's choice to name various characters after sexual acts, I thought maybe he was tipping his hand and telling readers to read this book from a feminine sexual-lens... OR, that the author was laughing at us for trying to read TOO much into the book, and hitting investigative readers with a giant sex joke for all of their sleuthing. If a meta book about being an observant reader doesn't /reward/ its readers, then is the whole point a satire? A big middle finger for reading at all? That's cruel. And if the book is just a sex joke, it went over my head, and was in poor taste, since the context holding the joke is a woman grieving her dead mother, dead friend, and estranged husband. AND if the book is trying to be a revolutionary, feminine story structure, I - a woman - have a problem with its lack of climax, heavily dissatisfying.

It's rare that I can't tell if a book is too smart for me, or too dumb. But either way, much as I appreciated the concept and metaphors, those mechanics are not /enough/ to carry a book. A good mental exercise. A lousy story.

This book is fantastic, and is so much better when you don't know what you're getting into. V.E. Schwab reveals the bigger picture one little clue at a time, somehow managing to make a diverse cast of morally suspect misfits feel compelling, like a brilliant mashup between Dexter, Lost, and Cowboy Bebop. No spoilers from me; read this book!!!

This book is criminally boring. It reads as though the biographer only had access to Jim Henson's secretary's day planner, and gives the driest rundown of what time Jim's flights were or when he went out to dinner... This man was a creative and philosophical legend. Where are the sketches and storyboards?! Where are the quotes from his personal journal? Where are the /color/ photographs? Why are there no interviews with any of the many, many, MANY celebrities who crossed his path? This book did Jim Henson a disservice by not being more visual, more colorful and elaborate, more /fun/.

And, if anything, this book /lowered/ my opinion of Jim Henson. Despite the author's reassurances that Jim Henson was morally upstanding, I found, the more I learned about him, the more Jim seemed to morph: another predator on the #MeToo list; an arrogant man who wouldn't hear criticism, especially from women, and who would spitefully fight his critics by writing them letters; a man who let fame go to his head and overspent frivolously; a man whose "creativity" was limited by whatever life hang-up he was going through at the time (Jim wants to break into movies, Kermit makes a movie. Jim lives in Manhattan, The Muppets take Manhattan, etc.). I cannot believe that this book made me fall /out/ of love with Jim Henson.

This book had an amazing setup, introducing a corner of the world where the boundary between realities is weak, and lost objects from other worlds rain from the sky. The promise of a quasi-steampunk fantasy had me hooked. And the story did deliver a twist ending I hadn't seen coming. But the middle of the book dragged, as the story stumbled through several cliches:
- A forced, rapid romance between main characters.
- A prophecy.
- A girl previously billed as independent getting captured and/or attacked multiple times, and being literally carried to safety by a guy every time.
- One character becoming a plot-convenience dump of skills which they heretofore haven't shown the audience.
- One character nobly, but recklessly, going off on their own to spare their friends further pain, and inadvertently causing a lot more pain for everyone which was completely avoidable if the team had stuck together.
- A character who is billed as having superhuman strength is consistently the first to go down in a fight.

There was on additional pacing problem I experienced: The book opens with a map of the continent, and the quest revolves around getting Piper and Anna across the continent to the capital city of the Southernmost kingdom... But instead, the majority of the book takes places on a train. The details of the plot, and the natural purpose of a train, led me to /feel/ like the characters were meant to ride the train /to/ a destination. But the train is the destination, the characters never really leave the train. And that gut sensation of never reaching an end point, never finishing the quest... made me anxious. That same feeling as waiting for a delayed flight. I found myself rushing through the book just to see if the characters would ever get off the train, and take that sense of travel anxiety away. Knowing what I do now, that the book was meant to be more of a train heist story... Maybe with different expectations I could have enjoyed the book more. But I feel like the book did a disservice to itself focusing on the train for so long, instead of the meteor shower of misplaced objects mystery. The most intriguing part of the story was the part it left behind after the first few chapters.

It's a good, adventurous, surprising, creative book for its demographic. But I was left wanting more.

A dark, dangerous, intriguing world... which we rarely get to sink into properly thanks to the anime tropes which distract from the central gothic fantasy story. Spoilers ahead.

Let me give props where due, the concept of books having a life of their own is a gorgeous extended metaphor. In fact, a whole world of inanimate objects with personalities - like the statues which move - is both romantic and spooky, exactly the niche this book strives to occupy. Perfectly fairytale-like.

However, I was waiting for another twist of the screw. The grimoire covers are made of leathers (i.e. skins from living beings) and imbued with the magic and minds of the sorcerers who authored them. When exposed to certain stimuli (exactly what is left vague and particular to each book), the grimoires literally come to life as giant monsters... I was waiting for the Attack on Titan twist of these monsters, these books, are real, living beings - not all of them evil - who are trapped, and want to be healed. The author /almost/ gets to that conclusion, but not quite, instead having a very Beauty and the Beast battle at the end, where the books in book form give the enemy... papercuts. A goofy conclusion to a scary premise.

Sorcery of Thorns has an obvious sentimentality for libraries in general, the entire plot centering on the heroism of books and librarians. It's cute, I love books too or I wouldn't be reading this... But - and this is entirely my personal opinion - I have an aversion to books which taught the majesty of books (with the exception of A Series of Unfortunate Events) because they sound pretentious (and ASoUE knows it's pretentious and makes fun of itself throughout, making it fun). The middle of SoT drags, as Elisabeth visits a library, reads some books in the parlor for days, visits another library, reads a book in bed, has some food brought to her, reads more books in the parlor... The actual plot of a librarian /being/ a librarian to save the day is... boring.

But nitpickiness about sentimental bookishness aside, my big problem with this book is that it's a beautiful, dark fairytale... struggling to get free from a WAY overused collection of anime and YA tropes:
- Male protagonist/love interest shows affections for female protagonist/love interest by insulting her and keeping his distance.
- Male protagonist appears callous and shallow, but is actually deeply traumatized and is healed by the female protagonist's optimism and unconditional love.
- Female protagonist/love interest has an immediate attraction towards the male lead, and blushes, squeaks, is clumsy, or analyzes her feelings/his behavior for romantic possibilities, even as something dangerous or depressing is happening.
- Female protagonist is tall, strong, a berserker, righteous... and proceeds to faint, get distracted by her tummy rumbling, gets carried around by men, gets groomed by servants, and is pampered with sweets and new clothes.
- Super magically strong male protagonist receives life-threatening injuries from enemies/overusing magic, and female protagonist worries by his bedside. Male protagonist recovers, and has full faculty of his powers, as if the incident never happened. Female protagonist gets distracted by half-naked male protagonist. Somehow, near-death and near-sexual experiences lead to a discussion of male lead's dead parents.
- Animal sidekick.
- Demon butler.
- Monologuing villain.
- Black best friend who is largely not included in the central plot.
The spooky fairytale is interrupted by banter, cartoon physics, steamy star-crossed lovers, and cheesy villain dialogue, borrowed straight out of Black Butler, or any of a thousand other animes. It's clear that this is what the author knows, and finds funny or cute; we all strive to emulate our heroes, right? But it's not what makes this book /original/. The original content of this book is /strong/. The Otherworld, the grimoires, Elisabeth navigating Right and Wrong in a world built on lies when all she has is her own wit and gumption - all /strong/ subject matter! I wish this book had been about a revelation about The Otherworld, about what demons /are/, what grimoires are, how Elisabeth's natural connection to the Great Libraries gave her the ability to empathize with the plight of the magical slaves and free the demon race... It almost was that book. Almost. This book could have said some amazing things about social justice, or maturing into oneself instead of inheriting society's prejudices. But instead, it told us a story we've heard a million times before: Girl meets boy, boy likes girl, they whack some monsters in the head, and live happily ever after.

My last thoughts on this book are spoilerific: How did Penderghast keep a vial of blood in a non-physical dimension? How did Ashcroft mind-control Directors when he didn't renew his contract with Lorelai and therefore had no magic? Why does Elisabeth have super strength and super healing? How is Nathaniel able to summon multiple storms in the finale, when he was supposed to be on bed rest and also weakened by iron exposure? Remember how I just said that original content of this book is strong? Yeah... there were also a lot of confusing parts. It took me three times as long to read this book as it would a YA fantasy of similar page length, because so often I was confused about the layout of a scene, or the rules of magic. Even something as simple as, "Elisabeth hid behind a bookshelf. A book bit her dress. She yanked her dress away, and toppled the bookshelf," gave me endless grief. How does a girl fit behind a bookshelf that's flush to the wall? Is it an open-backed shelf, because how else could the book reach her? How does someone yank backwards, but fall forwards? To get up on a soapbox for a minute, it is the author's job to use words to make us see their world. They have to explain the layout of a room, there is no camera to do it. They have to explain the structure of magic if they're going to reinvent how it works. I felt that the movie in the author's head wasn't always effectively communicated to the audience, which is sadly a capital sin in writing; it is literally the entire point of a book.

A solid YA read, but not a revolutionary one.

This book could have been a much-needed, and appreciated, queer fairytale. Instead, it took two steps backwards for each step forward. Spoilers below.

1) Pro - A non-binary hero stumbles into a journey of redemption, self-discovery and true love.
Con - Said character is introduced as a trans person, who uses their assumed identity to mislead and harm their love interest. The world did not need more Trans People Are Secretly Trying To Hurt You characters in fiction.

2) Pro - A resilient and cynical black heroine - whom society has cast down - learns to trust in herself and others, and unlocks a power and happiness she hitherto thought inaccessible to her.
Con - A black person is society's punching bag, so she turns to a life of crime. We didn't need more All Black People Are Criminals tropes in fiction.

3) Pro - A heroine living a confused, harried life, comes to realize that she is more than what society expects her to be, and she has access to literal magic when she is true to herself.
Con - Magical Black/Asian Girl trope. Too often in fiction, people of color or islanders get romanticized as having access to mystical wisdom/magical powers. Romanticizing Otherness widens the gulf of understanding between races and contributes to racism. Would have been nice if either heroine were powerful because of their personality traits (kindness, courage, etc.), or because of their chemistry together, rather than witchcraft.

4) Pro - A queer fairytale has two heroines explore genderized roles - male and female - in order to fit into society, before rejecting society entirely and becoming something completely, profoundly new, and Right for them.
Con - Spoiler: They become fish. Well, they become mermaids, but mermaids in this universe are very fishy, having wide-set eyes and gills on their cheeks. Again, we have a widening chasm instead of a bridge, representing queer people as Other, even Non-Human.

Getting off my social justice soapbox, this book's technical writing was also problematic and immature. The author repeated themselves, seemingly for emphasis, but often unnecessarily/to little effect. The switching point-of-view characters didn't work for me, there was no suspense left to the book, and also I was confused as to whether the author wanted us to sympathize with the viewpoint character or not. There were plotholes (like why blow up a ship when A) You're on it, and B) You're supposed to be conducting a stealthy rescue mission?). The characters largely don't have character arcs: Evelyn is already kind and unconventional, Flora is already aware of their gender fluidity and /moral/ fluidity, Rake knows he is silent and complicit and never pays for it, Genevieve is a loyalist who remains loyal despite learning of her government's many corruptions... The only measurable growth is minor: Flora, who knows she is comfortable as Florian... admits that she is comfortable as Flora or Florian. Which is great and all /for Flora/, but does nothing for the people she's murdered.

All in all, I felt this book was trying to do something profound, but failing in its task. I vacillated between being angry and being bored.

An absolutely stunning sequel. The back cover spoiled for me that there would be new protagonists, and I thought the shift wouldn't live up to the rivalry between Eli and Victor in the first book. Boy, was I wrong! The new additions are a welcome, strong, deliciously scary team. "He'll hath no fury like a woman scorned."
The mechanic V.E. Schwab uses, of counting down to the moment when all the characters collide, is beautifully done. My heart was in my throat the whole book!