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bluejayreads's review against another edition
adventurous
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
This review is hard to write because is the kind of book I call a Perfectly Enjoyable Reading Experience. It was entertaining, I very much enjoyed it while reading, but it’s not particularly memorable and I don’t feel much of a need to continue the series.
Which is a bit amusing, because this book was trying to have big things to say. This society is stratified into an upper class of people who can do magic and an underclass of people who can’t. The “exile” Kellen is facing is not being thrown out of the city and whatnot, it’s being relegated to second-class citizen and having no options but menial labor or being a servant, probably to his definitely-magical sister. Considering some events that I can’t mention because spoilers, there was definitely an anti-classism message here. It just didn’t come up until almost the very end and thus got overshadowed by Kellen’s magic struggles.
I am still not sure what the setting was supposed to be. The title of the book, which made me think of a play on “gunslinger,” and Ferius Parfax’s entire character had a very strong Wild West vibe. But the rest of the setting seemed to be Generic Magical City with that roughly-1800s-but-magic-instead-of-tech thing that I think of as generic fantasy. There were interesting details, but I was very confused about what the big picture was supposed to look like.
And you know, after all that criticism, I’m going to come back and say that I really enjoyed the read. Kellen had definite character growth, putting together all the puzzle pieces of information he discovered was fun, and I loved his efforts to succeed with brains and wit since magic didn’t seem to be coming to his rescue. If you’re at all trope-savvy you’ll see the reason for his magic issues coming from a long way off, but I was pleasantly surprised to be surprised by some of the details.
The ending wrapped up well enough, and I’m not enamored with this story enough to keep going. There was some wasted potential, especially in regards to magic-less people being a societal underclass, but for as much as I love absurdly powerful characters I also love characters with no power who succeed by cunning and trickery, and so I thoroughly enjoyed Kellen. Though it’s not particularly memorable after I finished it and it’s definitely not making any top books lists for me, it was a perfectly enjoyable read
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Death, Torture, Violence, and Kidnapping
Moderate: Body horror, Slavery, and Medical trauma
Minor: Genocide, Sexism, and Vomit
pinksystem's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Death, and Torture
Moderate: Violence, Medical trauma, and Abandonment
Minor: Genocide and War