robert_bose's review against another edition
5.0
Fun and enjoyable with a great take on lycanthropy. Once I got into it, I ended up reading through half the night. Now on to Plague of Ghouls!
cassanette's review
5.0
“Where’m I?”
She caressed his shoulder. “You’re in hell.”
Have you ever read something that changed you as a person? Do you want to know what it feels like to be undone and then remade - different, better? Read this series to find out.
Just... HOLY SHIT. READ THIS SERIES, EVERYONE. IT'S SO GOOD I DON'T EVEN HAVE WORDS.
I could not stop reading this book. And this was just the beginning.
* The atmosphere is dark, with a looming sense of doom and wrongness. I felt like I was there with the characters (which would not have been a nice experience). So many things in this book are creepy, disturbing, or outright terrifying. I'm usually not a fan of single narrator books but in this case that works perfectly to create just the right amount of mystery.
* The characters are wonderfully crafted. I want to protect them all and I know I can't, which breaks me. Ishmael is a great protagonist who's easy to root for (I love him to pieces) but it's as much him as the supporting cast that really make the book shine. Even some of the zombie-like creatures get actual characterisation in this book - I literally got misty-eyed at that last scene with Icepick, it touched me so much. The author poses some intriguing and difficult questions in the way she sets up the world. It's great stuff, truly. For a novel so relatively short? That space is used wisely.
* The mystery never loses suspense. The revelations come out slowly, and as they do, you start to get the feeling of just how fucked up everything is. The plot twists are AMAZING. I really didn't see them coming.
* I adore that this book is genuinely funny. It's something I really don't get enough of in the books I usually read, which is why this was such a delight.
* My only complaint would be that I was very confused a lot of the time. I had a hard time really visualising anything, and action scenes often left me questioning my ability to read with comprehension.
Whatever I can say about this book, two things are always going to be true about the series:
1. the sequel absolutely destroyed me in every way possible and became my new favourite book,
2. the ending to this series is absolutely perfect. 11/10.
Blight of Exiles feels like a prologue to the rest of the series, in a way. Here, in this mysterious place, the goal is simple: survive. In book 2 the scope expands dramatically and machinations come out of the shadows. The intrigue, the backstabbing, the dirty games. And then, the dirt starts to come out - and it's not pretty.
Another thing about this series I really enjoyed was that every installment is different. Blight of Exiles in my opinion feels most like a horror, Plague of Ghouls is a murder mystery, and Scourge of Bones reads like a thriller.
2. Plague of Ghouls review
3. Scourge of Bones review
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