A review by ayzorah
Fathomfolk by Eliza Chan
3.0
Thanks to Little Brown Book group and Netgalley for providing me with the ARC too this book in exchange to an honest review.
Can I just start off by saying how much I absolutely adore this cover? This may be one of the prettiest cover I have ever seen and as soon as I saw it I knew I needed to read it.
I loved the world building in this. This is a fantastic, mythical story taking place in a half-submerged city with it's own politics, interpersonal issues which draw you in immediately and keep you enthralled all the way through. There is an abundance of mythical folk all living together which make the story very rich and conflict real, complex and relatable.
While I enjoyed the complexity of the issues presented and the political escapades of the characters I have to admit that sadly the plot kind of got lost to me midway through. I do enjoy a good intrigue and plot-twist but everyone was double-crossing everyone at some point and it started to feel predictable and repetitive. I also felt like there was a serious amount of unrealised potential in certain characters where I would have loved to know more/see the story develop a bit further.
Also, Nami as a character is completely unlikeable in my opinion. She is extremely flawed and not in a 'oh she is so flawed let me protect her' kind of way but in a way that I just cannot stand. How can someone have such a huge role in a 430 page book and not make one good decision throughout the entire story?
I just don't think any character (human or fathomfolk) could possibly be so naive, permanently be taken advantage of, create so many insane issues (I don't want to spoiler anything) and then somehow come out the other end? The romantic aspect involving her fell completely flat - more like she was being helplessly groomed and it made me feel borderline uncomfortable.
Like, just no. I found myself perpetually rooting against her and hoping that she would just return back to Yonakuni and stop inflicting herself on everyone else.
The pacing felt ok for the most part, although I did feel like this book was slightly on the long side. Thumbs up for the ending although it very clearly leads into a book two which normally I am not the biggest fan of when done so blatanly obvious. Hopefully with the introduction of some more likeable characters! :)
Can I just start off by saying how much I absolutely adore this cover? This may be one of the prettiest cover I have ever seen and as soon as I saw it I knew I needed to read it.
I loved the world building in this. This is a fantastic, mythical story taking place in a half-submerged city with it's own politics, interpersonal issues which draw you in immediately and keep you enthralled all the way through. There is an abundance of mythical folk all living together which make the story very rich and conflict real, complex and relatable.
While I enjoyed the complexity of the issues presented and the political escapades of the characters I have to admit that sadly the plot kind of got lost to me midway through. I do enjoy a good intrigue and plot-twist but everyone was double-crossing everyone at some point and it started to feel predictable and repetitive. I also felt like there was a serious amount of unrealised potential in certain characters where I would have loved to know more/see the story develop a bit further.
Also, Nami as a character is completely unlikeable in my opinion. She is extremely flawed and not in a 'oh she is so flawed let me protect her' kind of way but in a way that I just cannot stand. How can someone have such a huge role in a 430 page book and not make one good decision throughout the entire story?
I just don't think any character (human or fathomfolk) could possibly be so naive, permanently be taken advantage of, create so many insane issues (I don't want to spoiler anything) and then somehow come out the other end? The romantic aspect involving her fell completely flat - more like she was being helplessly groomed and it made me feel borderline uncomfortable.
Like, just no. I found myself perpetually rooting against her and hoping that she would just return back to Yonakuni and stop inflicting herself on everyone else.
The pacing felt ok for the most part, although I did feel like this book was slightly on the long side. Thumbs up for the ending although it very clearly leads into a book two which normally I am not the biggest fan of when done so blatanly obvious. Hopefully with the introduction of some more likeable characters! :)