A review by equleart
City of Lies by Sam Hawke

emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious medium-paced

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

3.75

I feel like this is a mystery novel, and it was an interesting one too. The city and society we're introduced to at the beginning was way too good to be true, so good that I thought the author might just be a bit naive, and the why of the unravelling of all took for granted is the meat and bones of this story and I do wish we'd gotten a bit more detail and space to let it breathe, where instead it feels very much kept to the necessary information.  I am not sure how I feel about the central conflict, suffice to say it got resolved much more gracefully and justly than I expected possible but I still don't know how to feel about it.  

A lot of things here are set up way too bluntly and did not really ever pay off very satisfyingly, even though there was one specific character arc that really looked like it was going to be predictable and kinda mid, ended up very cool and central to the resolution.

I am kinda underwhelmed by the big bad, just because they had barely any presence throughout most of the book and ended up being a very generic power-hungry villain and not involved with the more interesting goings-on (at least as far as this book spells it out, sequels might go more into that).  For the bit they got, they had a lot pf presence and impact, all the more shame they weren't aroundany more than that. 

All in all it was a fun read, though most of it just lacked the oomph to really get me invested. I'll probably read the next one eventually.