A review by aruarian_melody
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

adventurous emotional funny hopeful mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I really enjoyed this one and especially loved the main character, Maia. It was very interesting to see him deal with suddenly becoming an unwanted emperor and I loved seeing the different relationships he developed. This was a surprisingly cosy read, given the court intrigue and murder plots. The only thing keeping me from giving this 5 stars is the world building. It was fine in general, but the huge cast had very similar names and often additional titles, but few characteristics to keep them apart (at least for anyone outside of the core group of 10-15 people). Combined with all the other titles and terms, which also were hard to distinguish, I just gave up on trying to keep up with the court intrigue part. I don't normally have problems with following stuff like this in complex fantasy settings, but the names/terms were too similar and too surface level to sink in within one single novel. Still, I really loved Maia and the more immediate group surrounding him and had a great time with this.