thelauramay's review against another edition
5.0
Finished at 5am this morning.
Beautiful, dark, erotic, tragic, horrifying. An exquisite book, 10/10. But I'm going to need a few days to recover.
Beautiful, dark, erotic, tragic, horrifying. An exquisite book, 10/10. But I'm going to need a few days to recover.
hvnly's review against another edition
3.0
Just as a heads up for people like me who have a very specific phobia of veins: not only is there blood play and blood letting, but there are lots of very detailed descriptions of veins (size, color, location, etc). Because of that, the first half of the book was difficult for me to get through because I had to keep putting it down to take deep breaths. I don't know why blood doesn't bother me the way veins do, but if you feel the same way then pick up this book with caution.
Overall the book was a solid OK. Beautifully written and intriguing with a mystery I enjoyed unraveling, but it never really sucked me in. I felt more of a passive interest. I read it on the bus or during lunch, but I was never itching to get to it.
Overall the book was a solid OK. Beautifully written and intriguing with a mystery I enjoyed unraveling, but it never really sucked me in. I felt more of a passive interest. I read it on the bus or during lunch, but I was never itching to get to it.
morawynsmom's review against another edition
3.0
This book is lovely and intriguing, but I just don't have the patience to read the ebook right now and I can't find it in paperback, I will come back to it one day.
missmegreads's review against another edition
3.0
I just want to issue one big, book-long trigger warning for those readers who may find themselves not able to read a book where the heroine and protagonist is kept as a prisoner, abused (including sexual abuse), and then unable to communicate that abuse to anyone around them. There are any other number of disturbing elements (blood, child death, rape, abuse, gore, etc) and overall this a deeply bleak, deeply disturbing story.
The book is gorgeously written and the first 3/4ths of it are compelling if dark. Similarly, the basic premise of the world, the Otherseeing, is something I haven't, well, seen a lot so it felt fresh and well done. The idea of psychics and seers is nothing new, but marrying it to the idea of "the Pattern" made it feel original.
Nevertheless, the book didn't feel finished. It didn't feel fully formed. Like a song that has it's basic tune but doesn't have it's lyrics and harmonies all worked out to form a beautiful piece of music (whether it's major or minor key).
Nola is an extremely credible main character to me, which makes it all the more disappointing. She seems like a normal girl who had a lot of strange things happen to her, and however it changes her Pattern or Path she really is still that normal girl. Or at least she'd dearly love to be. She comes into contact with really, really vivid characters. In some ways everyone is more vivid around Nola.
Which makes the terrible, tragic tale of what Teldaru spends years doing to her all the more striking.
The ending is where the book falls apart, however. Think of this book like an overcast gray sky. If the sky itself neither pours rain nor clears up, it eventually becomes very blah and dissatisfying and flat. That's what this book becomes. Teldaru's plans ultimately reveal themselves to be childish and nonsensical. He's this towering, powerful, world-changing villain who, in the end, seems to have decided that if he could just make two historical figures into zombies who fight each other, he could use that to make himself king.
I remember, when reading, thinking: "This? This is what the years of enslaving and killing and abusing were for? For this?"
Teldaru can't be treated like a reasonable, decent human being. He isn't. And I'm not expecting him to have come up with a plan that an actual (somewhat) decent, reasonable human being who wants the throne would come up with. But he spends the entire book being sneaky and smart, and his ultimate plan is the opposite of that. It's the kind of plan a child might come up with.
Not that we can know how feasible the plan is. The entirety of King Haldrin's court is underdeveloped. In fact, a lot of Sarsenayan culture is. We don't get a sense of it as a real place with a distinct culture. Not in the way we do with Belakao (which I liked better and would've loved to have seen a book about).
I kept waiting for the punchline at the end, the thing that would cause all of Teldaru's schemes to make better sense. Nothing did.
There was a whole story about the interactions between Belakao and Sarsenay that probably should've been the main point of the book rather than just a long drawn out portrait of a young woman being abused and raped and silenced so she can't tell anyone that she's being tortured out in the open.
My main dissatisfaction is that, unless I'm reading this novel wrong, ultimately Nola didn't matter that much in and of herself. She mattered as a placeholder. You could make the argument that Bardrem is the hero. You could make a good argument that the true salvation of Sarsenay came at the hands of Yigranzi. But Nola, ultimately, wasn't really important in her own story because any girl who could do what she could do could've been Teldaru's needed victim.
She existed to be born, used by others, wander around aimlessly when nobody was left to be her master and then die. Teldaru didn't win, but he didn't really lose either. He didn't get what he wanted, but he did get to torture Nola to death - in a very real sense he did murder her.
It's a decent story and the writing is wonderful so if you're in the mood for something bleak, this is the book for you. But if you need something more satisfying, read elsewhere.
The book is gorgeously written and the first 3/4ths of it are compelling if dark. Similarly, the basic premise of the world, the Otherseeing, is something I haven't, well, seen a lot so it felt fresh and well done. The idea of psychics and seers is nothing new, but marrying it to the idea of "the Pattern" made it feel original.
Nevertheless, the book didn't feel finished. It didn't feel fully formed. Like a song that has it's basic tune but doesn't have it's lyrics and harmonies all worked out to form a beautiful piece of music (whether it's major or minor key).
Nola is an extremely credible main character to me, which makes it all the more disappointing. She seems like a normal girl who had a lot of strange things happen to her, and however it changes her Pattern or Path she really is still that normal girl. Or at least she'd dearly love to be. She comes into contact with really, really vivid characters. In some ways everyone is more vivid around Nola.
Which makes the terrible, tragic tale of what Teldaru spends years doing to her all the more striking.
The ending is where the book falls apart, however. Think of this book like an overcast gray sky. If the sky itself neither pours rain nor clears up, it eventually becomes very blah and dissatisfying and flat. That's what this book becomes. Teldaru's plans ultimately reveal themselves to be childish and nonsensical. He's this towering, powerful, world-changing villain who, in the end, seems to have decided that if he could just make two historical figures into zombies who fight each other, he could use that to make himself king.
I remember, when reading, thinking: "This? This is what the years of enslaving and killing and abusing were for? For this?"
Teldaru can't be treated like a reasonable, decent human being. He isn't. And I'm not expecting him to have come up with a plan that an actual (somewhat) decent, reasonable human being who wants the throne would come up with. But he spends the entire book being sneaky and smart, and his ultimate plan is the opposite of that. It's the kind of plan a child might come up with.
Not that we can know how feasible the plan is. The entirety of King Haldrin's court is underdeveloped. In fact, a lot of Sarsenayan culture is. We don't get a sense of it as a real place with a distinct culture. Not in the way we do with Belakao (which I liked better and would've loved to have seen a book about).
I kept waiting for the punchline at the end, the thing that would cause all of Teldaru's schemes to make better sense. Nothing did.
There was a whole story about the interactions between Belakao and Sarsenay that probably should've been the main point of the book rather than just a long drawn out portrait of a young woman being abused and raped and silenced so she can't tell anyone that she's being tortured out in the open.
My main dissatisfaction is that, unless I'm reading this novel wrong, ultimately Nola didn't matter that much in and of herself. She mattered as a placeholder. You could make the argument that Bardrem is the hero. You could make a good argument that the true salvation of Sarsenay came at the hands of Yigranzi. But Nola, ultimately, wasn't really important in her own story because any girl who could do what she could do could've been Teldaru's needed victim.
She existed to be born, used by others, wander around aimlessly when nobody was left to be her master and then die. Teldaru didn't win, but he didn't really lose either. He didn't get what he wanted, but he did get to torture Nola to death - in a very real sense he did murder her.
It's a decent story and the writing is wonderful so if you're in the mood for something bleak, this is the book for you. But if you need something more satisfying, read elsewhere.
linneak's review against another edition
3.0
Book Two of my "peruse through the library shelves" expedition. It was nice to read a novel by a Canadian author that isn't one of the typical heavyweights of Canadian literature, and I'd definitely be interested to read her other published works. This was a very very very very interesting novel. To be quite honest (without sounding melodramatic), I don't think I've ever read anything quite like it. It's an extremely unique, original and beautifully vivid book, while simultaneously being super creepy, suspenseful and dark. I know that's a very strange statement to make, but if you read the novel for yourself, you'll understand how true it is. I think what I appreciated most was the story's uniqueness. I'm finding as of late that many fictional works just seem to be variations on a theme or on a formula that have worked for someone else, so the originality of this book was quite refreshing and also shocking. The ideas of how seers see into peoples' futures, Bloodseeing, curses, kidnapping with hints of Stockholm Syndrome, prophecy fullfillment... An incredible mix of concepts and storylines. I guess the two main reasons that I didn't give this book more stars was that A) there were a few sections where I got lost in fogs of characters and/or Otherworld visions and B) parts of it just really really creeped me out. However, I would recommend it, and I think if you've got open-minded and discussion-hungry people in your book club, this could be a great choice. Just be prepared for some gory bits, and a few sex/rape bits (made even creepier by the whole kidnapping situation). Not the greatest sell, but like I said, I would recommend it.
jeanz's review against another edition
3.0
Nola is born into poverty in Sarsenay City. When Nola's mother realizes that Nola has the gift of Othersight and that she can foretell the future, she sells her to a brothel seer, who then teaches the girl to harness her gift. As Nola grows up, she embraces her new life, and even finds herself a small circle of friends. All too soon, Nola's world is again turned upside down when one of that small circle of friends is murdered. When a handsome, young Otherseer from the castle promises to teach her, she eagerly embraces the prospects of luxury beyond what she can imagine and the safety from a killer who stalks girls by night. Little does Nola know that he will soon draw her deep into a web of murder, treachery, and obsessive desire that will threaten the people and the land she holds dear. Nola will soon learn the harshest of lessons: that being able to predict the future has nothing to do with being able to prevent it happening.
Hmmm how to describe this book?.....like nothing else I have ever read is totally honest. It was quite complicated in some places and in others at the beginning a touch slow but wow once it got going it all happened. Then you realised you needed the slow paced part of the book to have set the scene and given you the background on the history of Sarsenay and of course the history of Otherseeing. The book is quite dark, and the blood seeing is mysterious and dark in itself as well as what Nola and Taldaru are doing with it. Its difficult to know what to say without giving away spoilers but at the end Nola makes the ultimate sacrifice to try to put all the darkness and wrong doing right. I loved the perseverance of Baldrem, how he is beaten but still tries to help and protect Nola even though he ends up paying the ultimate price. You find yourself saying if only things had been slightly different for Nola and Bardem, they could have been so happy and things so different. Nola is not totally innocent but does come across as quite naive and then she seems to be in so deep she cannot escape no matter how she tries and she does try. Nola also tries to warn people but because of the curse laid upon her she is unable to do so.
Like I said the book could at times be confusing but all the paths and ends came together in the end and made sense. So I did enjoy the book overall. It is aimed at adults, though I think some younger adults may also read it too. I would also add it is a thought provoking book too, you ask yourself what you would do if you had Nola's gift. I also liked the character of Grasni who turned out to be a true and honest friend to Nola when she most needed one at the end of the book.
chantale's review against another edition
3.0
There was so much blood, but yet I couldn't put it down because I wanted to find out how Nola is redeemed and saves the kingdom.
sucrose's review
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0