Reviews with content warning for Suicide - Tigana

Rating: B-

No one mentioned the incest!

Tigana is a country left in ruins, conquered by a sorcerer after they kill his son, he strips its name and culture from history after dominating and shattering the nation. Almost 20 years later, the survivors of the massacre come together under the banner of Alessan di Tigana, the younger son of the late prince Valentin, to liberate Tigana from the sorcerer and bring its name back from oblivion.

What follows is an almost 700-page book detailing the machinations of the characters as they come together to take down both of the sorcerers. Unfortunately, I felt like there was an overwhelming lack of action in this book. There was a whole lot of dialogue, development and some decent world-building, but as soon as something wild is going to happen, it's quickly dispatched with largely offscreen. I really struggled to see the scope of this book as "epic" given that there were no major battles until the final part of the book.

The book is divided into sections with each section showing a new map as the characters get closer to their goals. The maps were pretty well-drawn and detailed. I liked seeing the world and how it changed, which conqueror conquered which part of the map. My favourite characters to follow were Alessan and Dianora. I liked Dianora the best, honestly, her story was so rich and engaging - and incredibly tragic given the circumstances of her life. I loved the ending of her story arc, it was especially tragic. Her interactions with Brandin made good reading, he was such a deep character, I may have liked the story if it was entirely from his perspective. He literally destroyed an entire country because they killed one of his children - and he still had other children left - he just loved his son much more than them!

Unfortunately, there was just a lot of walking, talking and sad reflecting on the destruction of their nation - over the death of thousands of people, the erasure of their culture was more tragic - and it had been decades since it happened! I was also a bit bothered by the amount of meaningless sex in the book. One female character has sex with a male character just to keep him quiet while they hide in a cupboard. I appreciated that the women did have agency and chose to have sex but it sometimes felt like it came out of nowhere, or that it was just a necessary thing to happen in the part of the story.

As for the final conclusion of the book, the big final battle was very underwhelming. I was let down by this. In the end the book was really just decent, not a favourite of mine.

Content Warnings

mallorn's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

3.5

Content Warnings

nettyice's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

1.0

Hard to rate this one because it's technically pretty good (clever prose, intricate plot, and strong characters), but it's really everything I hate. It felt more like a sci-fi allegory than fantasy escapism, which generally isn't my preference, so that's my bias here. So if you like historical fiction with a dash of fantasy, convoluted plot, and pessimistic endings, then maybe it's for you. But for me, I haven't had a book make me this angry in a while.

SPOILERS - this is basically a rant. I needed to get it out of my system so I'd stop complaining to my friends about it:
- All of the women in this book! A heavy dose of kink shaming (where the shame is placed on Alienor and not really on Devin), unnecessary incest (what did that add to the plot? Dianora was then 'punished' for it with her tragic love story but Baerd got to find love with Elena? I hope he's the one the rusalka predicts dies), and an unexpected romance for Catriana (she struggles with ~becoming a woman~ because she can't enjoy anything until she proves her devotion to Tigana and then when she does and accepts that she has, then oh, surprise, she has earned the love of the Prince of Tigana? Seems counter to the point Alessan was trying to make. I just found it frustrating that all the women were fundamentally struggling with sex in some way (even Alais only went on the journey because of Devin) while the men were engaging in it just the same, but it wasn't defining them.
- The plot felt increasingly told me me rather than experienced through the characters. There can be a fun Sherlock Holmes element where you realize all these ties are coming together and, oh, that thing actually meant this thing the whole time. That's fun. And we had that at the beginning. It was a good draw into the world through Devin's eyes. But then we just kept doing that for half a year.
- I didn't like that there was no closure at the end, or that what was the closure was actually a lie. I get that dictatorships and struggles for power don't always end happily. But if the whole point was that everyone forgot about Tigana, then why didn't Dianora ever get to remember with anyone else? Because she technically lost (Brandin) in the end? I think that's also a bigger issue I had with it. Dianora ended up being one of the few I liked at the end and she had the worst ending. Yes, this book is supposed to make you think about the nature of power and the fine line of vengeance/justice, but I don't want to read 700 pages where I hate the good guys by the end and the only characters I like die.

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