A review by sade
The Gutter Prayer by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan

5.0

.UPDATE: The Gutter Prayer is currently on sale now 1st July, 2019 in the Kindle UK Store for 99p.

"Isn't it wonderful to be here in the great city of Guerdon, with all its sights and strangeness"

I'm not sure what i was expecting when i started The Gutter Prayer. I'd seen the reviews, obviously, from readers who'd gotten the ARC (those lucky people) - they were glorious. It wasn't just one person lauding this book, everyone who's review i hold in high regard was unanimous in their rating of this book:
Believe the praise, The Gutter Prayer is that book you don't want to pass up.

📚
📚
So what makes this book stand out?

📌I finally get a dark fantasy (i refuse to use that grimdark word) book where the female characters are not reduced to type. Like do you know how happy i was to have capable women. Nowhere was it questioned or insinuated that you couldn't do shit because you were a woman. I could have wept happy tears. No joke.

📌This book hits the ground running. From the very first scene, the author shows you that this book means business and is going to leave you at the edge of your seat. And by the book gods it does!! Completely and totally leaves you spinning and questioning everyone's motives.

📌The imagery/ World building is amazing. This book didn't do overly complicated and thank the lord for that. Whether it was with describing the non human denziens of Guerdon, or the gods or even Guerdon itself, this book was succint and direct. Yes you're reading, this but let me tell you Hanrahan was able to paint Guerdon and everything in it, in vivid imagery, that would make you fascinated enough to wish it existed. No jokes!! If Guerdon existed i'd definitely visit (i think)

📌The characters stand out. It's hard i'll give you that, to flesh out characters. To make them seem like there's different facets to them. But this book does that, We're not talking flat liveless characters here that end up feeling like they're being prodded to act in a certain way, It's all very organic. What's even more impressive with this book is, you're not just focused on one character. There's a host of characters here that you get to live inside their heads so to speak and they are freaking amazing.
Side note: My fave was Aleena because whew!!! that lady was a boss.

📌The prose is right on the money...Not unnessarily hindered with cumbersome words just to make the book sound smart, except you're using the word inferated 😊. What i especially loved about it was the narration in present time. So it basically felt you and characters didn't know what was going to happen next. You were basically in the dark and it just served to make charcter decisions even more authentic because you could realy immerse yourself in their situations.

📌Finally the plot. A lot of times i feel authors who write in this sub genre think if their book is especially gruesome and people curse a lot, the plot is taken care of. This doesn't happen here. The Gutter Prayer after being supported by amazing characterisation, world building and prose spins an awesome, pray for your characters, probably yell at your kindle, pray to the book gods, take deep breaths kind of story that you only find in the most impressive kind of books.

Is this book perfect? HECK YEAH!!! Ok well, that's maybe too much pressure, but it comes pretty darn close. I promise you won't regret buying this book.

BUY THIS BOOK!!