Rated 3.0 / 5 from 1 log on Katalog
Well, it’s a standalone fantasy book—that’s the first and maybe biggest thing to recommend it. It’s not YA, at all. It’s very dark academia, with a competent, ambitious female protagonist, which is fun. And I guess the magic is pretty cool? If you’re into cool magic systems? It’s brave in how much it commits to itself, it’s framing. And it’s not schmoopy at all. No romantasy here—and no grimdark horrors either. On the other side of the scales: subtlety? I’ve don’t know her. The social commentary is correct, yeah, but the author beats uou over the head with it with such unabashed vigor, halfway through you start thinking there might be a switcharoo. That maybe something unexpected is going to happen. Nope. It’s about what you would expect. The pacing can be weird and the author loves her main character too much to make her truly the ice cold bitch she needed to be. The intensity of the subtextual Social Commentary is so strong, it makes you roll your eyes a little, and get grumpy at parts. I don’t exactly feel comfortable weighing into the main part of the conversation that’s to do with race and minority oppression and such. But just underneath that, the author makes sure we know how she feels about gender politics. And just—I mean she’s not wrong, I guess, but the observations are so obvious and so simplified, it really makes you pause at times. Idk, it’s a grownup book, you know? So why do we have these baby takes? It’s a mismatch between the complexity of the argument and the seriousness of the setting that throws you off. Like, take LeGuin and Pratchett on the opposite spectrum. Their packaging is young, they don’t open their books with mass slaughter of a people, but the substance underneath is vast and wise. Here it’s emotionally deep—poverty , murder, exploitation, oppression—but philosophically poor—all those things are bad. Idk thw book is probably better than I give it credit for. I just couldn’t with whatever version of feminism this is
