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brekas91's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Moderate: Death, Gore, Suicide, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Abandonment, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
britreads's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
I found the first couple hundred of this novel to be interesting, engaging and tense. I thoroughly enjoyed Cade and Aren's friendship and most of the characters were endearing in the beginning. Once the story moved through the Skavengard section, I found the story to lag and the character became irritating. I also found the tone to be weird. It felt like Wooding wanted to build a tense, serious scene and then a character (usually Grub or Cade) would make a joke and that reduced the tension. While I like long stories and plan to read several lengthy novels later this year, I felt this was too long and should have been cut down. I really didn't enjoy the love triangle between Fen-Cade-Aren and I didn't enjoy the building romance between Fen and Aren. I didn't see what they liked about the other. They were just a boy and girl around the same age and thus it was romance by proximity instead of genuine feelings. Also Mara's motivation being feminism in this world didn't work for me since she was focused on how Krodan society kept HER down, instead of all women. It was very much 'White Feminism' and I found her annoying. All in all, I think this is a decent fantasy and I mostly enjoyed my time reading this. I may check out the sequel, though I don't feel a pressing need to run out and read it.
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Suicide, Violence, Death of parent, and Colonisation
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