A review by sauvageloup
Notes from the Burning Age by Claire North

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

a strange but striking book, with some 5 star parts and some 2 star parts, for me. rated up for originality and being thought provoking.

pros:
- the language and descriptions and some dialogue is just beautiful. its like poetry, the turns of phase and the raw appreciation of life and nature the symbiotic relationship between humans and earth, and how death feeds life. 
- connecting to, the kakuy being a wonderful creation, and i liked how North stressed how they simply *were* nature, in all its indifferent glory, and not gods that cared or noticed humans at all. but that humans should care for them, simply because they come from the earth that gives us life. they make for a great vehicle for metaphor and musings on protecting nature and climate change, and being a tiny part of a huge thing, but also becoming that huge thing itself by being subsumed by it.
- the complicated and very human relationship that Ven had with Georg was powerful, how he completely disavowed his tormentor, his enemy, his captor, and everything Georg stood for, and yet still had a connection with him as a fellow human and could see who Georg might've been in a different life. it showed how the worse evil is created by normal men.
- the other worldbuilding was fascinating, with the eco tech, some of which is familiar and some not, but feels realistic. there is a kind of speculative fiction feel to it, as well as magical realism. also seeing our own time (or a hundred years in our future) through their eyes was really interesting and I liked how they talked about both the sacredness of normal human belongings and rubbish, as well as the pollution of those same things. 
- I liked the nonbinary chatacter Lah very much
and got emotional when they were murdered and poor Ven was left with their body. that was viscerally and disturbingly describe 

- I liked the way Ven's quiet strength and persistent compassion was described and emerged later in the book (I loathed him as a spineless traitor at the start, hes a very unreliable narrator), and there is a thread of hope that it is the character who sees the humanity in everyone and resists destruction as far as possible is the one to survive all the atrocities he suffers. 

cons
- my biggest issue was the slowness. whilst i loved sections of the descriptions and contemplation, it was repeated too often for me and it dragged the pace. the only times i was absolutely engaged was during the action scenes, everything else felt like a sometimes frustratingly slow meander through plot points.
- i also got confused. it didnt help that i had gaps in between reading, so I'm sure i forgot stuff, but i wad very lost near the beginning
when Ven suddenly has a name and personality  change for apparently no reason, plus a rushed through history of his middle years and a bunch of new characters. I didn't care about his fat  at all during this because I didn't know why it was important and thought he was terrible.  of course that may be the point, but it didnt make it easier to read.

- I got confused with names in general, there are a LOT and place names. a map would have been so helpful. 
-
I did guess who Pontus was as soon as they were mentioned, Yue seemed fairly obvious as the most emotionally invested council character. but it was still interesting seeing how ven worked it out. bit underwhelming how he didnt seem angry at her at all, though it did fit with his character.


overall, a tricky and slow, but also beautiful, original and poignant novel about humanity and the environment. 
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