Scan barcode
A review by milkshakevoid
Pantomime by L.R. (Laura) Lam
3.0
There's something about the circus that is enchanting, and while it's easy to recreate that sort of magic in pictures or on film, in my experience, it's a hard sell in fiction. Pantomime, however, hit the mark.
What was hit or miss was the world building. Going in, I was aware that the story followed a hermaphrodite noble woman who runs away from societies expectations to become a man in the circus. I cannot stress enough that the story is so much more than that and I absolutely enjoyed it, but I had no idea going in that this a bit high fantasy. Or maybe not high, but otherworldly with fairies and gods and mystical doodads that aren't ever really explained. While I eventually got the hang of what was going on and the characters were so compelling and well rounded that I couldn't put the book down, for the longest time all the magic/god details were totally lost on me because I didn't realize that this wasn't straight up fiction. At best I figured it must be an alt universe a few decades or centuries ahead of us, and then somewhere around the midpoint they mention the year 10500 ( or something like that) and I kind of reeled.
It would have been nice to have had a primer with dates or a brief history or something ahead of time, because I don't think that the Kedi/god stuff made an appearance early enough on to not be jarring. It made for lots of interesting twists later on, but I think those twists were received with more pursed lips and indignant sighs than the author probably intended.
Also, the ending was a bit of a let down. No spoilers but I'd felt like the climax of the novel wasn't quite enough. And as a side note, I really hope this series starts to make sense and not just hold all the cards till the end because aside from the parents reveal I wasn't too thrilled with most of the twists in this book and I'm already rolling my eyes at the idea of spending the next book with some magician when we've never even heard of their being magician's in this world until the last chapter. I'd much rather if that Dr found Micah at the circus but I guess we'll have to wait and see.
I really enjoyed Micah/Gene and Drystan definitely grew on me, which is good because without their chemistry I probably wouldn't be as eager to continue onto the sequels.
What was hit or miss was the world building. Going in, I was aware that the story followed a hermaphrodite noble woman who runs away from societies expectations to become a man in the circus. I cannot stress enough that the story is so much more than that and I absolutely enjoyed it, but I had no idea going in that this a bit high fantasy. Or maybe not high, but otherworldly with fairies and gods and mystical doodads that aren't ever really explained. While I eventually got the hang of what was going on and the characters were so compelling and well rounded that I couldn't put the book down, for the longest time all the magic/god details were totally lost on me because I didn't realize that this wasn't straight up fiction. At best I figured it must be an alt universe a few decades or centuries ahead of us, and then somewhere around the midpoint they mention the year 10500 ( or something like that) and I kind of reeled.
It would have been nice to have had a primer with dates or a brief history or something ahead of time, because I don't think that the Kedi/god stuff made an appearance early enough on to not be jarring. It made for lots of interesting twists later on, but I think those twists were received with more pursed lips and indignant sighs than the author probably intended.
Also, the ending was a bit of a let down. No spoilers but I'd felt like the climax of the novel wasn't quite enough. And as a side note, I really hope this series starts to make sense and not just hold all the cards till the end because aside from the parents reveal I wasn't too thrilled with most of the twists in this book and I'm already rolling my eyes at the idea of spending the next book with some magician when we've never even heard of their being magician's in this world until the last chapter. I'd much rather if that Dr found Micah at the circus but I guess we'll have to wait and see.
I really enjoyed Micah/Gene and Drystan definitely grew on me, which is good because without their chemistry I probably wouldn't be as eager to continue onto the sequels.