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A review by leonidskies
The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
A delightfully strange book, unlike anything I've read so far but a lot like something I'd like to read a lot more of in the future. The Saint of Bright Doors doesn't quite come off in the way it presents itself on its blurb, but not in a bad way. It's filled with a seemingly mundane, everyday horror that reminds you, through its effortless links to a more supernatural horror, that the horrors it recounts shouldn't be mundane at all. It's incisive and deeply political, yet interwoven with the effortlessly personal.
There's a haunting narrative of privilege and resistance and oppression throughout, constructed on top of a fantastical world with an enrapturing story that just *fits*. It's strange, yet it all makes a lot of sense. It didn't take long for the book to be immersive, and despite the novelty of a lot of the concepts to me, I didn't find anything particularly hard to follow. Shoutout to the moment, of course, that completely flipped the whole book on its head maybe 80% of the way in; absolutely incredible setup. This is just a Good Book, folks.
There's a haunting narrative of privilege and resistance and oppression throughout, constructed on top of a fantastical world with an enrapturing story that just *fits*. It's strange, yet it all makes a lot of sense. It didn't take long for the book to be immersive, and despite the novelty of a lot of the concepts to me, I didn't find anything particularly hard to follow. Shoutout to the moment, of course, that completely flipped the whole book on its head maybe 80% of the way in; absolutely incredible setup. This is just a Good Book, folks.