ergative's reviews
1041 reviews

This was basically all vibes, and not much plot. Very little is answered about the mystery -- like why the people keep getting cut open. (My hypothesis is that they're caught on a boundary of a fold in the woods.) But the vibes were very impeccable, and the repeated mentions of the risk assessments are quite funny, in an existential way, given what's happening. That last little kick in the teeth for poor Nuria was rough.

I feel a bit bad about rating this so low. It did what it set out to do incredibly well: re-imagining The Little Mermaid in a West African mythos. The recognizable components -- rescuing a Love Interest from drowning; a mermaid who can take human form because of the assistance of a sea witch; discomfort in walking, with pain in the feet -- were recognizable, but seamlessly integrated into an entirely different world. The plot was tight, with the Love Interest's goals aligning coincidentally with the mermaid's goals; and the eventual resolution of the love story was handled in a satisfying and unpredictable way. (Although I see it's book 1 of a series, so I expect that resolution is going to be walked back in favour of a more predictable ending, alas.)

But. But but but but. This book is firmly YA. It is aimed at a YA readership, and for that reason, although I recognize the skill at this beautiful reimagining of a familiar tale in a new context, I found myself getting awfully bored and restless at times. THat's not the book's fault. It's a good book that does what it does well. But it wasn't for me.

I'm not fully sure about this one. I really liked the complex religious-politics-history setting, which reminds me a bit of the Craft Sequence: old gods replaced by a new regime, with different nations split according to their affiliations w/r/t the conflict. That was incredibly rich world-building, and expressed without info-dumping, but by trusting the reader to figure it out. The more I think about it, the more I really, really liked that bit.

But I found the character arcs rather tedious. Oh No I Have Trauma From Daddy Issues! That whole reveal felt kind of . . . cheap? Like, it didn't really explain anything (and I find Daddy Issues as an explanatory device tedious even when it is effectively integrated). It was just chucked in to add depth or something. And the growing connection between Ferain and Karys feels dull too. I worry that if there is a sequel to finish the story (which is unfinished currently, given where it ends), it will focus more on the characters than on the world-building, which feels fully developed. And I'm not so interested in that, to be honest.

THe creepy, creepy ass Sabaster was delightfully creepy. That was great.

 ... dafuq did I just read? That is a gruesome, bewildering, but also fascinating ride. I'm not sure I'll be panting at the bit to read another book by this author, but I also wouldn't avoid it. I'd need to be in the right head space. I don't trust him, not an inch, but he's definitely got my attention. 

This was more satisfying than the previous book (Buried) in the Alice Roberts trilogy, in large part because she could actually report archaeo-genomic results and what they told us, rather than promising that answers would be coming, really truly, just around the corner! The structure of the book worked really well, too: each dead body (or collection of dead bodies) was linked to a very nice historical vignette, such as the sinking of the Mary Rose, or the phenomenon of anchorites, or the spread of leprosy, or the debate surrounding the Columbian hypothesis about the origin of syphilis, or the murder of Thomas a Beckett. The problem is that each of the historical vignettes is very well told, complete with a mystery that, ideally, the archaeological investigation of the associated bodies should cast light on. And in most of the cases, they don't. Not really. Is that skull actually Thomas a Beckett's skull? Well, maybe? But probably not? It depends on how literally you believe the claim that the top of his head was chopped off during the murder: did it cleave the skull in two, or was he just scalped? We'll never know. So although the book did a great job of setting up the historical mysteries, the actual answers are never provided. In one way, it's probably an accurate glimpse into the true nature of Alice Roberts's job; but in another way, it makes for an unsatisfying reading experience.

If Clarke hadn't already been a famous writer, this would never have been published. It's just religion-flavoured vibes with nothing behind it. Clarke once saw a statue of a saint in a church and decided to spend her literary capital writing this thing in response. I feel betrayed.

 I'm not a huge fan of these Emily Gravett illustrations, but Hardinge, even when writing middle grade, is so good! I cried. 

 Great, satisfying end to the series, but I just don't like teenage mopey Fitz. This is the least good of the Robin Hobb RotE serieses (although Assassin's Apprentice is really very good), but I'm looking forward to finishing the whole saga, since I know at least three very good trilogies await me. 

 Right,this is the one where Fitz is a mopey lovesick teenager. I remember getting quite bored with it all. Still, Hobb's writing is sufficiently engrossing that it was a very good book to occupy me during a very bad night. 

 Gosh, I'd forgotten how really, really good this book is. It's a perfect Book 1, too: introduces all the key events that I know will become important later, while still ending in a satisfying way, with a complete story wrapped up.