idksamiguess's review
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Death, Torture, and Murder
Moderate: Child death
theneighborhoodbookwyrm's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Violence, Child death, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Rape, Torture, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Grief, and Physical abuse
ireadinbed's review
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
This book was almost a DNF at around a 100 pages because I started it when I eas really sick. But I picked it back up as a plane read for vacation months later and I ended up really liking it! At about the halfway mark I had finally gotten to where I understood the setting and was invested in the characters.
I think I could have a 5 star in later books. The ending was satisfying but I am bummed the next book is obviously gonna be in a different place I had just gotten a handle on camorr lol. But this one took just a little too long to get me invested in the characters. Still a great bookk but not quite a 5.
Spoiler
which made all the characters dying super fucking impactful lol. My heart for Bug and Nazca in particularI think I could have a 5 star in later books. The ending was satisfying but I am bummed the next book is obviously gonna be in a different place I had just gotten a handle on camorr lol. But this one took just a little too long to get me invested in the characters. Still a great bookk but not quite a 5.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Torture, Gore, Vomit, Violence, and Child death
davonysus's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Death, Animal cruelty, Blood, Cursing, Murder, Classism, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, and Violence
Moderate: Alcohol, Body shaming, Vomit, and Fatphobia
Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Grief, Pandemic/Epidemic, Cursing, Excrement, Death of parent, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Drug use, Drug abuse, Kidnapping, and War
vi_king's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
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? Yes
4.5
A great heist! Reminds me of Six of Crows, if you halved the cast and doubled the dark and violence. Really caught me off guard a bunch of times.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Vomit, Excrement, Murder, Torture, Violence, Child death, Cursing, Death, Gore, and Blood
It's a dark and violent stiry and doesn't recoil from that at all. It doesn't leave you reckoning with it really, just facing it and accepting it as part of the events.cassie7e's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Dark and violent but consistently funny and compelling as well. An intriguing world, subtle grounded magic, and lovable thieves. Scenes from different timelines woven together at just the right times to reveal information and character development.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, and Death
Moderate: Child death, Cursing, Gore, Blood, Classism, and Murder
Minor: Fire/Fire injury and Alcohol
kiwij96's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
It took a moment for me to get used to the structure of the book: chapters written in parts with an interlude at the end of each chapter which is like a flashback. Once I got used to this stule of stroytelling, it became easier to engage with, however, there were times when the story was engaging and I couldn't put it down for like 100-150 pages, and other times where I struggled to get to the next part. It also felt like some of the paragraphs had been very heavily attacked by a thesaurus which meant I had to reread sections just to understand what was going on.
Criticisms aside, the story was full of twists and turns and more deaths that a season of Grey's Anatomy. The worldbuilding was full of description and even had its own calendar system. The characters were fantastically written, both good and bad characters. They brought me joy, anger, and heartbreak at times. Locke is an interesting character to me because as someone who is supposed to be the brains of the operation, he sure does make a whole bunch of mistakes and then continues acting like he is the cleverest being known to man.
I am unsure if I will continue the trilogy as this one felt like it could be a standalone, but we shall see.
Criticisms aside, the story was full of twists and turns and more deaths that a season of Grey's Anatomy. The worldbuilding was full of description and even had its own calendar system. The characters were fantastically written, both good and bad characters. They brought me joy, anger, and heartbreak at times. Locke is an interesting character to me because as someone who is supposed to be the brains of the operation, he sure does make a whole bunch of mistakes and then continues acting like he is the cleverest being known to man.
I am unsure if I will continue the trilogy as this one felt like it could be a standalone, but we shall see.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Murder, Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Blood, Death, and Violence
Moderate: Child death, Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, and Vomit
Minor: Classism and Animal death
ijustreallyliketrees's review against another edition
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Death, and Torture
Moderate: Child death
Minor: Vomit, Death of parent, Excrement, and Cancer
ziopera's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
inspiring
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Torture, Death, Child death, and Cursing
Moderate: Sexual content and Pedophilia
Minor: Animal cruelty
emeraldrina's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
I’m honestly really baffled by all the rave reviews of this book… it was a fun heist story in a unique and quirky fantasy world, but nothing particularly special or great. There were quite a lot of major flaws that unfortunately really took away from the book’s highlights.
I’ll start with the good - the world building is incredible. It’s intricate, original, and holds so many mysteries yet to be answered. The descriptions are beautiful and detailed, making it easy to picture this strange world.
But therein also lies one of the major downfalls of the book - there’s far too much world building detail and description throughout the book. Between every chapter there’s an “interlude” - initially these are all flashbacks to the characters’ past to give insight into how or why they’re doing certain things now. But about halfway through the book the interludes just turn into unnecessary world building info dumps that jar the reader out of the story. Many of these are superfluous - the information was already conveyed in a more interesting manner via the main story, as it should be. The rest are just pointless to the main story, and feel more like the author is insisting on showing off exactly how much work he put into his world building.
Likewise with the descriptions - they’re written not as part of the story, but in the author’s voice, butting in between the action to tell us as much detail as he can because he wrote it all and doesn’t want it to go to waste. They’re beautifully written, but they’re not in the POV character’s voice, so they don’t feel like part of the story. They feel like unnecessary interruptions.
As for the characters, they mostly have clear voices and personalities and flaws. However, the main character is utterly lacking in internal conflict. Up until the villain shows up (which is waaaay too late in the book), Locke had no real goal or motivation in life. He has a major flaw, but no related overarching misbelief about the world or fear that’s driving him to act in ways counter to his goal. He’s just … a thief stealing money for the sake of it. He never learns anything, never transforms, never really changes at all. And this is why the first couple hundred pages of the book are such a drag - we don’t care about Locke because he has no internal conflict. We start caring a bit when the inciting attack fiiiinally happens near the halfway point, but this is still just external conflict. So even after that initial attack, there weren’t really any different stakes for Locke than for anyone else in that situation. So we still didn’t care all that much.
The final problem is the schemes. They’re supposed to be genius level clever… but they’re not. They’re quite frankly idiotic. They seem to have been purposely designed to fail easily - which of course they have. But only the author should know that, not the readers! The gaping holes in the schemes in turn make the plot transparently predictable. Which is even less fun than usual in a heist story.
I really didn’t hate the book as much as this makes it sound. The dialogue was amusing, the world was fascinating, and the prose was lovely. It just fell a lot flatter than I was expecting after reading so many great reviews.
I’ll start with the good - the world building is incredible. It’s intricate, original, and holds so many mysteries yet to be answered. The descriptions are beautiful and detailed, making it easy to picture this strange world.
But therein also lies one of the major downfalls of the book - there’s far too much world building detail and description throughout the book. Between every chapter there’s an “interlude” - initially these are all flashbacks to the characters’ past to give insight into how or why they’re doing certain things now. But about halfway through the book the interludes just turn into unnecessary world building info dumps that jar the reader out of the story. Many of these are superfluous - the information was already conveyed in a more interesting manner via the main story, as it should be. The rest are just pointless to the main story, and feel more like the author is insisting on showing off exactly how much work he put into his world building.
Likewise with the descriptions - they’re written not as part of the story, but in the author’s voice, butting in between the action to tell us as much detail as he can because he wrote it all and doesn’t want it to go to waste. They’re beautifully written, but they’re not in the POV character’s voice, so they don’t feel like part of the story. They feel like unnecessary interruptions.
As for the characters, they mostly have clear voices and personalities and flaws. However, the main character is utterly lacking in internal conflict. Up until the villain shows up (which is waaaay too late in the book), Locke had no real goal or motivation in life. He has a major flaw, but no related overarching misbelief about the world or fear that’s driving him to act in ways counter to his goal. He’s just … a thief stealing money for the sake of it. He never learns anything, never transforms, never really changes at all. And this is why the first couple hundred pages of the book are such a drag - we don’t care about Locke because he has no internal conflict. We start caring a bit when the inciting attack fiiiinally happens near the halfway point, but this is still just external conflict. So even after that initial attack, there weren’t really any different stakes for Locke than for anyone else in that situation. So we still didn’t care all that much.
The final problem is the schemes. They’re supposed to be genius level clever… but they’re not. They’re quite frankly idiotic. They seem to have been purposely designed to fail easily - which of course they have. But only the author should know that, not the readers! The gaping holes in the schemes in turn make the plot transparently predictable. Which is even less fun than usual in a heist story.
I really didn’t hate the book as much as this makes it sound. The dialogue was amusing, the world was fascinating, and the prose was lovely. It just fell a lot flatter than I was expecting after reading so many great reviews.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Slavery, Child death, Gore, Violence, Trafficking, Vomit, and Cursing