A review by stormlyte
Castles in their Bones, by Laura Sebastian
1.0
DNF at 50%
I don't know how a story on daughters raised for war could be this boring but let's talk about lost potential. Sebastian's prose, while strong, lyrical and accessible at once, is not enough to tide over a novel whose leaky plot and threadbare characters are insistent on sinking it .
- Writing a fantasy reliant on politics means it should be rooted heavily in economics, geography, history and prejudices. I only got hazy outlines of the world and how it operates after reading 50% of the novel.
The choices do not make sense and there's no emergency or character struggke to propel forward the work
- The characters are painfully dull. Each of the three girls' respective husbands seem to be constructs instead of characters, the antagonists lack complexity that makes them appealing and the romance is chemistry free.
- The reason why haunts me throughout the novel. Conquest of the rival kingdoms should give Bessemia some advantage but none is referred to in the text because allegedly, the other states are close to ruin. So why take on the burden when you are doing well? The economics and history student in me doesn't understand. Conquest for the sake of conquest? But the queen is touted as wise?
- Missed Opportunities- You cannot get more tragic, epic and complex than a mother raising her daughters for war but the mother barely is even present and is relegated into an angry villainess.
I could keep going but this book neither thrilled me nor enraged me. It was a long, winding meh. So why waste the energy?
Thank you Netgalley and publisher for the earc in exchange for an honest review
I don't know how a story on daughters raised for war could be this boring but let's talk about lost potential. Sebastian's prose, while strong, lyrical and accessible at once, is not enough to tide over a novel whose leaky plot and threadbare characters are insistent on sinking it .
- Writing a fantasy reliant on politics means it should be rooted heavily in economics, geography, history and prejudices. I only got hazy outlines of the world and how it operates after reading 50% of the novel.
The choices do not make sense and there's no emergency or character struggke to propel forward the work
- The characters are painfully dull. Each of the three girls' respective husbands seem to be constructs instead of characters, the antagonists lack complexity that makes them appealing and the romance is chemistry free.
- The reason why haunts me throughout the novel. Conquest of the rival kingdoms should give Bessemia some advantage but none is referred to in the text because allegedly, the other states are close to ruin. So why take on the burden when you are doing well? The economics and history student in me doesn't understand. Conquest for the sake of conquest? But the queen is touted as wise?
- Missed Opportunities- You cannot get more tragic, epic and complex than a mother raising her daughters for war but the mother barely is even present and is relegated into an angry villainess.
I could keep going but this book neither thrilled me nor enraged me. It was a long, winding meh. So why waste the energy?
Thank you Netgalley and publisher for the earc in exchange for an honest review