Samantha Shannon

This was so close to being a 5-star book. The setting was relatively interesting, the lore was somewhat unique, and the main characters were compelling. I actually enjoyed the romantic plots for some of these characters and didn't feel like it was forced. I was happy to be reading a standalone novel that wasn't going to be the next GoT and understood that some cuts would need to be made. You can't go as deep when you are only writing one novel to cover an epic storyline.

But that's...kind of the problem? 75% of the book was paced beautifully and the last quarter felt so rushed. We spend dozens of pages following Loth and his journey but after Tane does a certain something we skip ahead to her return? It just felt like the editors were like, "Uh, Samantha, you need to cut like 100-200 pages." I actually WISH this book had just been 1,000 pages or a trilogy to spend more time with these characters and explore more of their stories because some of them were simply rushed.

Also, the last battle was just not well done. It was hard to follow and I couldn't get a sense of scope and space where the people were moving around. It just felt like it needed more time to cook and be clear.

That being said, this is a fantastic book and still in my top 5 of standalone fantasy novels. I can overlook these things because the majority of the novel is just really well done and I couldn't put it down.… (more)

This was not an easy read. The book is long and the start is rough going. While the story starts off a little slow, that was not really a problem for me. The thing that brought me close to making this a DNF in the first few chapters was the awful metaphors. Chapter 3 starts with,

"Dawn cracked like a heron's egg over Seiiki. Pale light prowled into the room."

So, I'm not a fan of the writing but it did get better as the story progress. I believe it took the author 3 years to write (?) and I they had improved significantly as a writer over that period. But, comparisons to The Lord of the Rings or Game of Thones don't really hold up. The story is certainly epic and creative, but the writing is, at best, 'not distracting', and the characters are generic and superficial.… (more)

I wanted to love this book so much. I loved the world building, the vivid and multi-dimensional characters, and the complex plot. I enjoyed getting to see different characters in different cultural settings, and watching their plots slowly weave together. But it felt like this should’ve been a book series instead of one unbelievably long book that crammed the ending into the last hundred pages - which is nothing when you consider that the book is over 800 pages. I was very disappointed with the ending - you don’t even get to see one of the two battles that occur, and the climax unfortunately falls flat of the lengthy build up it was given. I wonder if perhaps the author was under pressure to wrap up the book quickly and not expand it into a series when her ideas deserved one. I was disappointed because I’d heard some very good things about this book, but it just couldn’t live up to the hype.… (more)