A review by meghaha
The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard

3.0

Such a cool setting, premise, and grim-dark aesthetic. And I was really stoked to read about a Vietnamese-French main character dealing with the effects of colonialism on his life. The interweaving of Western and Asian mythology was super cool. But there was just something so off about the pacing. I'm fairly sure the fault isn't with the pacing on the macroscopic level--since there was plenty of action scenes and conflict overall--but there was a definite issue with the exposition and how the actual paragraphs were put together. There was so much talking and explaining and thinking--not that I'm against that on principle--but this talking and reflecting was going on during magic fights, violent murders, and action-y scenes, and slowing down things that should have been fast, creating missed beats and a ultimately making for an inharmonic rhythm. It's like the exposition was just wrongly distributed over 400 pgs. Anyhow, it pains me that I don't like this book more, as it's exactly the kind of setting/atmosphere I dig as well as being poc fantasy.