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bookhobbit It's been a while since I did a book review! It's not that I haven't been reading, it's just nothing of what I've been reading has fit my fairly narrow criteria for something that I'd like to talk about here. (Tbh I've been stress-rereading a lot of Agatha Christie for some reason).
I've seen a fair bit of hype about this book, so I was happy to be able to get it from the library. My general feeling is...I liked it a great deal, but not quite as much as I was hoping for.
All of my issues with the book were really fairly specific Mechanics of Writing issues and/or personal taste things. I'll get that out of the way first.
Firstly, it was in alternating first-person points of view, which I hate. This is my #1 POV pet peeve, I'll take any tense/POV combination most of the time but I H A T E alternating first-person. It's really easy to get confused about whose point of view you're in at any given time unless the character voices are extremely distinctive, and these are not particularly so. This is a personal pet peeve and not a serious critique; I just don't like it. Frankly, it speaks to the quality of the plot and the freshness of the setting that I kept reading it even so.
I will say, however, that even if you don't mind this particular trope, it makes the action really slow, especially towards the end. The author switches POVs a lot during action moments and often picks right back up where the narrative left off and goes through the action blow-by-blow and it's like....Miss Adeyemi, PLEASE just tell me what is going to happen, I Am Dying. So it was a bit of a slog at points to get through that.
I also found the writing style....hm. It's hard to explain. It's not bad, but it's a style I personally quickly tire of. I can't describe it any better than "typical contemporary YA spec fiction". It's dramatic, and to me it can sometimes feel slightly overblown. I don't necessarily want to say "...and that's bad" - but I read so much of this when I was a teenager that I have a lowish tolerance for it now. This is an issue of taste rather than competence.
There were also romances that felt fairly obligatory, but....eh. I'm pretty used to that in YA. I would like to have seen a bit more....hm. Compatibility/effort? But it's less "this book is particularly bad" and more "this book does not rise above the standard tropes of the genre here". If you enjoy that kind of thing, you will probably like it.
What was good about it? THE WORLDBUILDING. GOOD WORLDBUILDING. The magic is super cool, very well-developed and fascinating. It reminded me a tiny bit of Avatar: The Last Airbender, which I've never seen but which is somewhat inescapable in my generation. Also close relationships between gods and humans which is something I'm v weak for. It's written with a lot of heart and love, every page blooms with it. The author described it as "a love letter to her culture" and I think that's very clear, and it's very beautiful. I also think a lot of kids who read this book will get to do a lot of imagining about what clan they'd be in and what magic they'd have and that kind of thing, which is great.
Lots of travel and adventure. Very suspenseful, I kept reading in intense desire to see what happened. Gender-balanced cast, women at the forefront. A great, vibrant main character. Plot seemed to me to hold together very well - I always struggle to write plots with enough Events but this was full of them without any of them seeming off-track or irrelevant so I found this very impressive in a first novel particularly (I believe this is the author's first).
I understand this has been optioned for a film already. I actually think it will work slightly better in that medium. Most of my real issues with it are to do with how it's written - the concepts, plot, and characters are, I think, strong. Although it would probably work better as a series because there's a LOT going on that deserves to be explored slowly, but still, it's written in such a way that I think it'll work best visually. Lots of pretty descriptions of how magic looks and so forth.
I've seen a fair bit of hype about this book, so I was happy to be able to get it from the library. My general feeling is...I liked it a great deal, but not quite as much as I was hoping for.
All of my issues with the book were really fairly specific Mechanics of Writing issues and/or personal taste things. I'll get that out of the way first.
Firstly, it was in alternating first-person points of view, which I hate. This is my #1 POV pet peeve, I'll take any tense/POV combination most of the time but I H A T E alternating first-person. It's really easy to get confused about whose point of view you're in at any given time unless the character voices are extremely distinctive, and these are not particularly so. This is a personal pet peeve and not a serious critique; I just don't like it. Frankly, it speaks to the quality of the plot and the freshness of the setting that I kept reading it even so.
I will say, however, that even if you don't mind this particular trope, it makes the action really slow, especially towards the end. The author switches POVs a lot during action moments and often picks right back up where the narrative left off and goes through the action blow-by-blow and it's like....Miss Adeyemi, PLEASE just tell me what is going to happen, I Am Dying. So it was a bit of a slog at points to get through that.
I also found the writing style....hm. It's hard to explain. It's not bad, but it's a style I personally quickly tire of. I can't describe it any better than "typical contemporary YA spec fiction". It's dramatic, and to me it can sometimes feel slightly overblown. I don't necessarily want to say "...and that's bad" - but I read so much of this when I was a teenager that I have a lowish tolerance for it now. This is an issue of taste rather than competence.
There were also romances that felt fairly obligatory, but....eh. I'm pretty used to that in YA. I would like to have seen a bit more....hm. Compatibility/effort? But it's less "this book is particularly bad" and more "this book does not rise above the standard tropes of the genre here". If you enjoy that kind of thing, you will probably like it.
What was good about it? THE WORLDBUILDING. GOOD WORLDBUILDING. The magic is super cool, very well-developed and fascinating. It reminded me a tiny bit of Avatar: The Last Airbender, which I've never seen but which is somewhat inescapable in my generation. Also close relationships between gods and humans which is something I'm v weak for. It's written with a lot of heart and love, every page blooms with it. The author described it as "a love letter to her culture" and I think that's very clear, and it's very beautiful. I also think a lot of kids who read this book will get to do a lot of imagining about what clan they'd be in and what magic they'd have and that kind of thing, which is great.
Lots of travel and adventure. Very suspenseful, I kept reading in intense desire to see what happened. Gender-balanced cast, women at the forefront. A great, vibrant main character. Plot seemed to me to hold together very well - I always struggle to write plots with enough Events but this was full of them without any of them seeming off-track or irrelevant so I found this very impressive in a first novel particularly (I believe this is the author's first).
I understand this has been optioned for a film already. I actually think it will work slightly better in that medium. Most of my real issues with it are to do with how it's written - the concepts, plot, and characters are, I think, strong. Although it would probably work better as a series because there's a LOT going on that deserves to be explored slowly, but still, it's written in such a way that I think it'll work best visually. Lots of pretty descriptions of how magic looks and so forth.
