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talonsontypewriters's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Suicide, Xenophobia, and Grief
Moderate: Child abuse, Death, Misogyny, Sexism, Terminal illness, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Murder, and Classism
Minor: Homophobia, Incest, Infertility, Miscarriage, Pedophilia, Alcohol, and War
ladythana's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Child abuse, Suicide, Grief, and Death of parent
Moderate: Bullying, Death, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, Dementia, and Car accident
Minor: Miscarriage, Racism, and Kidnapping
hannan_'s review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Overall, nice and slow story — there isn’t too much action, and any action is very very curt.
Katherine Addisons main strength comes in her characterization. Maia is such a complex, empathetic character. The way he thinks about other characters also brings them to life. Maia’s longing for companionship, working through his trauma, his developing emotional intelligence, and overall kindness was a delight to read. The most unrealistic part of this story? The fact that he’s a teenage boy (18, but still…).
I do think that there were some themes that were introduced that I felt could have been explored a bit more. For example, I felt that the prejudice that goblins felt in the elven court (including Maia) was hinted at but never fully resolved. (Which, now thinking about it, might have been intentional on the author bc can racism be solved overnight?) another aspect is that Maia learns of a fortress built on top of a sacred indigenous burial ground, and feels bad about it— but this conflict was brought up and never resolved (maybe in a future novella?)
This is often recommended as a “cozy” fantasy. While 80% is cozy, I’d recommend checking content warnings for the other 20%, because they are quite grim, to the extent that I wouldn’t recommend this as a cozy fantasy.
I think that the pacing was nice and slow, and the beginning was super interesting. There was a middle book slump, but a really engaging payoff in the last 150ish pages. The book just takes a while to set up this complex net of a political machination.
The world building was complex. It presented this small slice of this larger world, alluding to but not fully developing the world beyond the court.
I think my biggest problem is that for the first time in my life, I’ve had trouble juggling characters in my head. There were so many, and each of them had multiple names and titles based on an imaginary and unnecessarily complex naming system. There were so many similar names, from people who weren’t related, making it even worse. Addison needed to realize, that naming 10 people in a paragraph— some multiple times with different titles and different honorifics— made it impossible to read. I’d understand if the naming system was based off of an already established culture, but you had terms 20+ characters long, and a 30 page glossary which took up alot of time to get through and really broke immersion in the story.
Thankfully, there were parts where I realized I didn’t necessarily need to recall who a person was. But there were also multiple parts in the story where I had to put the book down to take a breather because the book was throwing alot of information at you at once.
Graphic: Misogyny, Sexual assault, Xenophobia, Kidnapping, Grief, and Death of parent
ethuiliel's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
Moderate: Child abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Suicide, Violence, Xenophobia, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Murder, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Misogyny and Racism
emcat591's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
I liked this book, but I did have several issues with it. The names are long and unpronounceable; ignore the pronunciation advice given and just plow through, butchering as you see fit, because there are so many that you will drive yourself crazy otherwise. Additionally, the large volume of long and confusing names made it somewhat hard to keep them straight. If something wasn't mentioned for a while, I found myself struggling to remember what it was without context clues.
On top of that, there is a significant amount of very clunky formal language - thee's and thou's, etc. It is most present in the beginning, but never fully goes away.
My biggest issue, though, was the way that hurt feelings would suddenly pop up in conversations and then disappear. Maybe it was just going over my head, but sometimes emotions seemed to come out of nowhere. In one example, Maia is glaring at Csevet in one paragraph and then laughing with him on the next page. I didn't really get that and found it off-putting and confusing when characters would have strong emotional reactions seemingly at random.
Somewhat related is the issue that a lot of the characters kind of blurred together. Don't get me started on the various Lords of the Corazhas, but besides that, there were certain characters that Maia apparently had an emotional attachment to without me realizing it. Dazhis comes to mind - Maia mentions that he liked Dazhis after something unfortunate happens, and it came as a surprise to me because I didn't remember that being mentioned or indicated at all.
Slightly spoiler-y nitpicks:
The book ends on a hopeful note, which was nice. Overall, it was not my favorite. I found myself wishing that I was reading a book where stuff happened and was somewhat reluctant to pick it up each night, but once I settled in and started reading, I was engaged and it was enjoyable enough.
Graphic: Misogyny and Suicide
Moderate: Homophobia and Racism
hybridtulips's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I'm usually not a huge fan of steampunk, but the theme is light enough and handled well enough for me to actually enjoy it. A first time for everything!
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Suicide, Grief, and Death of parent
Moderate: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Death, Misogyny, Racism, Terminal illness, and Violence
Minor: Alcoholism, Homophobia, Infertility, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, and War
The while book is themed around moderate to mild racism towards (darker skinned) goblins within the (lighter skinned) elven society, externally from other characters, and internalized by the main character.amandaterasu's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Body shaming, Bullying, Death, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Xenophobia, Grief, and Death of parent
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Colonisation, and Classism
Minor: Alcoholism and War
A lot of the Content Warnings (but not all!) here are about recovering from the trauma inflicted by the content listed. This is a book about healing and moving forward after trauma.michmoo's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
100% one of my favourites for this year and quite possibly of all time. I will definitely be seeking out the companion novels to keep exploring this world.
Graphic: Emotional abuse and Grief
Moderate: Child abuse, Death, Violence, Death of parent, Murder, Abandonment, and Classism
Minor: Misogyny, Racism, Alcohol, and War
glittergoblin13's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This is not a story of grand battles or action and I found that extremely refreshing. Maia is not brash, loud, or aggressive. He is soft, thoughtful, uncertain, and lonely, trying desperately not to lose himself entirely in learning to become emperor. I love that about him because it feels extremely fitting for someone who survived abandonment and physical and emotional abuse. Maia isn't angry, even: he wants to be kind because he doesn't want anyone to feel the way he's felt. I am a sucker for that kind of narrative. <3
My only complaint is tiny, in the grand scheme of things: the naming conventions in this novel are annoying. Not annoying enough to take anything off the rating, but enough that I have to mention it. I ended up ignoring the conventions altogether and just pronouncing everything the way I thought they might be. It didn't matter too much, after all.
Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Grief, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Sexual harassment
achingallover's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Child abuse, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Suicide, Grief, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Sexual harassment