Reviews with content warning for Violence - The Cartographers

This was an engaging story in the beginning, then I got bored (the characters weren't especially likeable or believable) and this could have easily been a DNF... but at around the 50% mark, it picked up again, weaving together the characters' lives & pasts, and I was quite engaged from that point on. The different voices for different characters in the audiobook was quite enjoyable as well. I also found myself really liking the magical realism, mystery element, and excitement in the second half of the book. And I love that this is based on a true story! That little history section at the end, so fascinating! It makes it feel all the more magical.

Unfortunately, the magical bits did not have rules or logic, something which I had been waiting the whole time to be put together. That was quite disappointing and leaves a lot of large plot holes which make the whole story just not make sense. The second disappointment was just that the characters didn't seem super real -- many of their motivations and actions just didn't make sense (especially the "evil" character). I think if the magic in this book made sense or if the characters were genuinely believable, this would have been a favorite for me.

Content Warnings

th18's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

This book was just fine. Nothing amazing. The writing felt juvenile and so many events were happening it felt rushed. I was irritated by the author constantly reminding us of how small the FMC was - her 'tiny frame' and how cardigans engulfed her etc.

Also she has a ton of bad personality traits that are just brushed away as her being a Young, like being too stubborn for her own good,not listening to anyone and not giving the map to the police like a sensible person after the break in and when she realised it would put a literal target on her back.

Spoiler

Lastly, her relationship kinda came out of nowhere after ignoring eachother the past 7 yrs. (Idk why Felix couldn't understand that she couldnt control her father firing him?!)

and honestly atleast 100 pages could've been dropped.

The nicer things:
Great idea but not great execution. It's nice that she still chose to stick with her passion for maps instead of going for a different higher paying job

Spoiler

(though unsure how she was going to be the SENIOR researcher at NYPL 2 days after returning to the place even though she hasn't even been working in a library the past 7 yrs).

Also somehow kept me reading until the end so props to the author for that.

Content Warnings

brookesinfinitebooks's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.75

Content Warnings

monnibo's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

Content Warnings

raquelcanread's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous funny mysterious fast-paced

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

3.0

Pretty entertaining! Gave me da vinci code/ national treasure vibes. If it gets picked up for a film it could be a cool adventure movie!!

Content Warnings

leaflit's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Content Warnings

voelve's review against another edition

Go to review page

fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

0.5

Tl;Dr: This book is the reading equivalent of junk food. A simple plot with twists you can see coming from 200 pages away, a cast of entirely two-dimensional characters, and nothing you have to spend any time at all thinking about. When I went back and saw this described as a "thriller", I almost laughed.

I'm sure it can feel good if you're in the mood for that, but I felt my time was entirely wasted on this.

Spoiler

It's been a while since I read a book like this, and 'The Cartographers' reminded me why. We have a main character, Nell, who we are constantly told is mousy, boring, and uncomfortable with herself and her entire life, yet she's constantly compared positively to her beautiful and passionate mother.

The second we're told she's estranged from her father, I knew he would die (and he did, like five pages later). She has two adoptive father figures of sorts who replaced him long ago in the book's timeline, but I-the-reader only ever developed an attachment to one of them.

We're told Swann was like a kind uncle to her while Nell worked at the NYPL, and sure, he never treats her badly, but all the affection we're supposed to have for him is secondhand. Humphrey, on the other hand, we're supposed to low-key despise for his choice of work, yet it's him we get touching bonding moments with. From Swann, we get expensive whiskey (the man is inexplicably wealthy for a researcher at a library struggling with funding).

Nell solves a mystery entirely from a list of first names and the knowledge that these people are vaguely related to the antique map world. Her ex works for an incredibly evil-coded surveillance company, yet this rings the alarm bells of no one until it's way too late.

Worst of all is the final "twist" of the book, which I put in quotes because it's not a twist at all, it's just bad storytelling. The plot device is that things you put down on a map become real, if you only you have that map (because, as the book saccharinely puts it, it's "not a place that makes a place, it's the people"). This somehow is supposed to explain how Nell's mother, who has been supposed dead for 25 years, survived in a phantom settlement - because if you just draw a map of a restaurant, food will materialize inside it. Or something. It breaks the extremely simple rules of magic for this plot device that had been established 250 pages earlier.

The villain - obvious the founder of aforementioned evil-coded surveillance company - is also the distinctly creepy childhood friend of Nell's mother. I cannot stress enough how this person is described by everyone in the flashback sequences as possessive, obsessive, and yeah, creepy - and yet everyone still wanted to hang out with him, and Nell's mother is seemingly oblivious to his general unpleasantness until it's resulted in her almost-death.

This book was a waste of everyone's time, including the author's.

Content Warnings

idun_aurora's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

It was a slow start, but damn, it got really, really good!

Content Warnings

More...