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A review by geldauran
The Queens of Innis Lear by Tessa Gratton
2.0
I'll preface this review by saying that King Lear has never been my favorite Shakespeare work. Although rightfully, this book stands pretty well on it's own, it's close enough to the source material that I wasn't enraptured. I prefer retellings when their source material is something with lots of room for interpretation and give - fairy tales, fables, legends, myths, etc. But retelling something like King Lear means you're rather bound to follow the twists and turns that already exist. Uh, anyway.
I think many of my reader friends would like this more than I did. The writing is truly lush and lyrical- there are many beautiful sentences here. And I did appreciate having three distinct female voices, and the success Gratton has in making them thoughtful, individual, and mostly sympathetic. The fantasy setting feels like a dark and stormy night, with blood, earth, and star magic all swirling around. There's a lot here to love.
But:
I didn't appreciate the fact that a lot of the action takes place off stage. There are so many interesting, key moments that get mentioned only in hindsight. Constantly "oh, did you hear about this?" rather than getting to see any of it. Maybe this is out of respect to the source material's format, but it felt disappointing in novel form, particularly given the length. (and this is a slog- make no mistake. I can appreciate giant books, like anything Brandon Sanderson writes, but there's got to be activity to fill the pages, not just pretty descriptions.) The book is very introspective, and I know that a lot of my friends love that kind of thing, but I wanted more time outside the POV's head.
And while I understand the reason to write in backstory ( it makes the characters far more sympathetic ), there's just way too much here. So much. The book is already feels so long, I could have missed around half of the backstory and not felt any worse for it. I found myself skimming large sections to try and get back to the actual action.
I guess my ultimate beef here isn't the book's characters or it's world- it's the execution. This book didn't mesh with me, but I'd guess others will cherish it.
I think many of my reader friends would like this more than I did. The writing is truly lush and lyrical- there are many beautiful sentences here. And I did appreciate having three distinct female voices, and the success Gratton has in making them thoughtful, individual, and mostly sympathetic. The fantasy setting feels like a dark and stormy night, with blood, earth, and star magic all swirling around. There's a lot here to love.
But:
I didn't appreciate the fact that a lot of the action takes place off stage. There are so many interesting, key moments that get mentioned only in hindsight. Constantly "oh, did you hear about this?" rather than getting to see any of it. Maybe this is out of respect to the source material's format, but it felt disappointing in novel form, particularly given the length. (and this is a slog- make no mistake. I can appreciate giant books, like anything Brandon Sanderson writes, but there's got to be activity to fill the pages, not just pretty descriptions.) The book is very introspective, and I know that a lot of my friends love that kind of thing, but I wanted more time outside the POV's head.
And while I understand the reason to write in backstory ( it makes the characters far more sympathetic ), there's just way too much here. So much. The book is already feels so long, I could have missed around half of the backstory and not felt any worse for it. I found myself skimming large sections to try and get back to the actual action.
I guess my ultimate beef here isn't the book's characters or it's world- it's the execution. This book didn't mesh with me, but I'd guess others will cherish it.