sassyowlreads's Reviews (910)

The good:
Besides the fact that Heather O’Sullivan is an excellent narrator, I'm very glad I opted to listen to A Feather So Black rather than reading it since I would not have pronounced most of the names correctly. I enjoyed Fia as a main character for the most part and loved all of the folklore/mythology references, some of which I was familiar with and some were completely new to me. It felt surprisingly character driven for a fantasy book, the mission often felt secondary to the relationships between characters. The story had a bit of spice but nothing too crazy. I thoroughly enjoyed the world-building, I love a good Fair Folk world. 

The not so good:
I'm always a little bit skeptical of books written in first person POV because they so easily can fall into the trap of a repetitive inner monologue. Fia and Rogan often had the same discussions over and over again and it was difficult not to lose interest. The pacing in the middle half of the book was pretty slow and the side characters fell a bit flat unfortunately.

Overall, this is more of a 3.5 star book to me. I enjoyed A Feather So Black and would consider continuing the series.

Thanks so much to Netgalley and the publisher for the audiobook arc!

Based on the description of She Who Became the Sun, I expected to LOVE it but actually struggled to not just pick up a different book instead. It felt so much longer than it's modest 400 pages despite a lot of important events happening off page. I love the unshakeable pursuit of greatness and the ending tempted me to read the sequel but I'm still undecided. I usually found myself caring less about Zhu and more about Ouyang and Xu Da. Overall, I enjoyed the first and last 25% but that middle 50% was rough. 

Thanks so much to Netgalley and the publisher for the e-arc!

I can honestly say I've never read a book like this.