A nice little add in to the GrishaVerse. It’s a fast read and an enjoyable look into the world of Bardugos books. The Lives of Saints is nothing ground breaking, but I don’t think it needs to be. It’s a book featured within the Shadow and Bone trilogy and an interesting little read for those interested in the saints mentioned in GrishaVerse books.

Also, the illustrations are marvelous. I spent half of the time it took to finish this book just staring at the pictures, they’re truly gorgeus.

I don’t know if I’ve ever felt so divided by a book. Do I like this or do I not? I guess I’ll start with the positives?

I enjoyed the plot, even as the ”identical twins” trope is truly tired it made sense in the story. Dafydds style was right up my alley: I adored the language and the dips into the characters psychology. I have to say, too, I will always love a book with short chapters. All the characters sucked, not in the way that they were badly written, but that they were awful people and I tend to gravitate towards books like that. The Wales of the story seemed incredibly interesting and I’m confused as to why the author decided to not focus on it more since it was absolutely one of the best things about the book. 

And that’s where we get to the negatives. Related to the dystopian Wales, the world building is really not that great. Maybe if I were Welsh or lived in the UK instead of Finland I could understand the world better? Am I just missing some cultural context? There is clearly critisism towards the way England treats Wales and I think it’s supposed to critique something about Welsh society too? That’s the vibe I’m getting and aren’t all dystopian books critiques of the writers society? It was completely lost on me though. The destruction of books as a way to control the masses is an incredibly interesting and relevant idea too, but it felt a bit detatched? I wasn’t a big fan of the way the ending was built either, it fell a bit flat, though I think I get the message.

Also, can we talk about the role of misogony and feminism in this book? I truly do not know wether the reader is supposed to be left thinking ”feminisim is bad” or ”feminism is good”. To me atleast, there seems to be some sort of conservative dystopian image of ”what happens if we let the females run the world”. Though the fact that the dystopian government is almost completely lead by women is almost exclusively given to us by Eben makes me uncertain in my claim, because no-one in this book, let alone Eben, is a reliable narrator. Also, Ebens little critic group is clearly not supposed to be liked by the reader and a big part of that is their misogony. So which one is it? I’m left extremely confused by the book and I truly cannot tell if I liked it or not, which leads me to give it just 2 stars despite the many positive aspects.

Olin antamassa tälle 3 tähtee kunnes pääsin loppuun. Hahmot eivät kasvaneet ollenkaan ja se, että

Noora ei jättänyt Samia kun kaikki paljastu oli paska veto. Etenkin ku asiasta ei sen jälkeen ollenkaan puhuttu. Senjankin ongelmat ratkastiin vaan ukolla ja penskalla; Senjan ei tarvinnu kasvaa aikuiseks ihmiseks ollenkaan.

Tykkäsin ite luku prosessista, ihan perus kirja, helposti seurattava, hyvän pituset kappaleet, kiva tyyli sinänsä, mielenkiintonen juoni, mutta en pääse sen yli ettei hahmot joudu kehittyyn ollenkaan. Eikä mulla oo mitään moraalisesti kyseenalaistettavia tai muuten ei niin mukavia hahmoja vastaan, mutta se, miten kirja on rakennettu ja kirjotettu sai mut odottamaan jotakin henkistä kasvua ja kunnon ratkaisua loppuun.

As usual, Bardugos characters are better than the plot itself, which is why I’m not giving it a full 5 stars. Absolute masterpiece regardless.

Paused reading for too long, I’ll pick it up again sometime this year.

I mean it when I say that the sex scenes are the only scenes that I could rate higher than ”tolarable”. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book with such low quality writing: it’s comicly repetative.  The plot is the only interesting thing about this book. And somehow the author managed to bury it under bad characters, poor writing and embarrassing dialogue. The characters act less like 30 year olds and more like high schoolers. A true struggle to listen through.