Scan barcode
the_novel_approach's review
2.0
For eight years Sebastian Swift has been locked up at All Fates Asylum for murdering his twin sister. The Water Thief begins with Sebastian waking up while being held down by two orderlies in a tub of cold water. After being dragged out of the tub by the same two orderlies, he is then hosed down with more cold water after he’s vomited and urinated on himself. He’s ordered to get dressed and is then led into his room, where he’s placed under lock and key. This seems to be par for the course at All Fates in how they deal with troublesome inmates. Especially with Sebastian, since he’s always breaking the rules and getting himself into trouble. But on this particular evening, there’s a storm brewing, and with that storm comes a mudslide that forces the collapse of the building that houses Sebastian. Through the rubble, he encounters the ghost of his sister, August, who leads him away from the Asylum and towards…safety?
It’s at this point that Sebastian stumbles across Sven, who takes Sly (aka Sebastian) under his wing at a place called Thievesward. Sebastian soon learns through Sven that not only is his Uncle Emrys doing quite well for himself since Sebastian’s incarceration, but so is the man’s bastard son, the Earl of Cantre’r Gwaelod. Sven then tells Sly he’ll take him in and teach him a few things—if he’s willing to do something in return.
Okay, this is where The Water Thief started to turn south on me. I really didn’t feel comfortable reading about how Sven had sex with Sebastian up along the side of an outhouse with spit as lube. I know that Sebastian is twenty-one and all, but he’d just escaped from an asylum, and here he has this skank of a man wanting to jump his bones in exchange for his continued safety. And Sebastian is okay with this because it doesn’t matter. After all, he’s no virgin after being taken willingly, or not, at All Fates. There was just something so eeeew about Sven, and I was sad for Sebastian.
It was made worse, though, as I found out more about Sven, which made him even skankier. Then later on in the story, through Macsen, Sebastian/August finds out that for years he’s been harvested for the magic he didn’t even know he had, a method that’s involved filling his lungs with water. Sebastian’s magic enables him to control water and to open up portals to higher realms or dimensions, as I’d like to call them. It’s why his Uncle Emrys has had him locked up in an asylum—to steal this magic and use it to control the people of the land.
What happens in The Water Thief is quite complicated, and some of the situations were just too much for me to follow. Although I did my best to not give up on this one, I did do lot of head shaking at some of the situations that came up while reading this novel. Let’s also add to it that the head hopping between Macsen and Sebastian didn’t help with the flow of the story.
I’m sorry to say that The Water Thief wasn’t my cup of tea, and if this review sounds a bit messed up… Well, that’s how The Water Thief made me feel after I finished reading it. Out of the whole of the story, I came to like Macsen’s character because he, like Sebastian, was a victim of all his father’s plotting, and he worked hard to make things right. Macsen and Sebastian’s characterizations were the only ones that made any sense, while the secondary characters were all over the place.
Reviewed by Kim for The Novel Approach Reviews
http://www.thenovelapproachreviews.com/review-the-water-thief-by-jane-kindred/
It’s at this point that Sebastian stumbles across Sven, who takes Sly (aka Sebastian) under his wing at a place called Thievesward. Sebastian soon learns through Sven that not only is his Uncle Emrys doing quite well for himself since Sebastian’s incarceration, but so is the man’s bastard son, the Earl of Cantre’r Gwaelod. Sven then tells Sly he’ll take him in and teach him a few things—if he’s willing to do something in return.
Okay, this is where The Water Thief started to turn south on me. I really didn’t feel comfortable reading about how Sven had sex with Sebastian up along the side of an outhouse with spit as lube. I know that Sebastian is twenty-one and all, but he’d just escaped from an asylum, and here he has this skank of a man wanting to jump his bones in exchange for his continued safety. And Sebastian is okay with this because it doesn’t matter. After all, he’s no virgin after being taken willingly, or not, at All Fates. There was just something so eeeew about Sven, and I was sad for Sebastian.
It was made worse, though, as I found out more about Sven, which made him even skankier. Then later on in the story, through Macsen, Sebastian/August finds out that for years he’s been harvested for the magic he didn’t even know he had, a method that’s involved filling his lungs with water. Sebastian’s magic enables him to control water and to open up portals to higher realms or dimensions, as I’d like to call them. It’s why his Uncle Emrys has had him locked up in an asylum—to steal this magic and use it to control the people of the land.
What happens in The Water Thief is quite complicated, and some of the situations were just too much for me to follow. Although I did my best to not give up on this one, I did do lot of head shaking at some of the situations that came up while reading this novel. Let’s also add to it that the head hopping between Macsen and Sebastian didn’t help with the flow of the story.
I’m sorry to say that The Water Thief wasn’t my cup of tea, and if this review sounds a bit messed up… Well, that’s how The Water Thief made me feel after I finished reading it. Out of the whole of the story, I came to like Macsen’s character because he, like Sebastian, was a victim of all his father’s plotting, and he worked hard to make things right. Macsen and Sebastian’s characterizations were the only ones that made any sense, while the secondary characters were all over the place.
Reviewed by Kim for The Novel Approach Reviews
http://www.thenovelapproachreviews.com/review-the-water-thief-by-jane-kindred/
poultrymunitions's review
1.0
you know what time it is.
this is a novel so pantsed and demented i had to rage-quit at 80 percent.
so much bullshit. so much.
nothing makes any sense. occasionally, the author visibly writes herself into a corner and then—zoot! here, have some bullshit.
or
or
so.
yeah.
this novel is full of lies and foolishness, and so is that blurb, which does not accurately reflect what sort of story this is in any way, shape, or form—except for a sneaky pronoun towards the end of it.
*admires oxford comma for a bit, like a moron, before recollecting himself in embarrassment*
...plus! people behaving with such catastrophic stupidity i was grinding my teeth by chapter two, never mind halfway into the story when it turns into something completely different and almost cripplingly annoying.
to say nothing of the POV changes! why would you switch from first person subjective case to third person subjective case? but, like, randomly, whenever you needed one character to do a thing the other character cannot?
the whole fucking book is like that.
'oh shit,' the author appears to realize, belatedly—'i need a thing for the thing so the thing can happen—time to sling some bullshit!'
i tried to put up with it because i was so near the end, and i've been struggling with it for a couple days, but—
but i cannot.
julio out!
but look: if you like the sound of the book the blurb advertises, it's fine. while the plot is completely unhinged, the prose is only occasionally overwrought.
just turn off your brain.
and if you likedual-realm speculative fiction with a magic system so lazily fudged it may as well be called White Dudes Necking In A Body Of Water , well...
...turn off your brain also.
and god help you if you can't.
as for me:
i think this book is a retroactive dafuquery taco.
this is a novel so pantsed and demented i had to rage-quit at 80 percent.
so much bullshit. so much.
nothing makes any sense. occasionally, the author visibly writes herself into a corner and then—zoot! here, have some bullshit.
me: wait, wait, where did he get the oil so he could conveniently have it on hand for fucking in the—
author: oops, my bad. here's some bullshit.
or
me: how did he previously get the money or know how to buy a ticket for the train when today he can't even read arabic numerals to tell what denomination he needs to buy a—
author: haha, no worries, try this bullshit right here.
or
me: why are both men on the cover dressed as olden-times dudes when one of them is at no point through 80 percent of this book out of a goddamned frock except to have hot monkeysex for the love of god in heaven and what the actual fuck?
author: *complete and utter silence while the heady aroma of fresh bullshit wafts from the pages of this book*
so.
yeah.
this novel is full of lies and foolishness, and so is that blurb, which does not accurately reflect what sort of story this is in any way, shape, or form—except for a sneaky pronoun towards the end of it.
*admires oxford comma for a bit, like a moron, before recollecting himself in embarrassment*
...plus! people behaving with such catastrophic stupidity i was grinding my teeth by chapter two, never mind halfway into the story when it turns into something completely different and almost cripplingly annoying.
to say nothing of the POV changes! why would you switch from first person subjective case to third person subjective case? but, like, randomly, whenever you needed one character to do a thing the other character cannot?
the whole fucking book is like that.
'oh shit,' the author appears to realize, belatedly—'i need a thing for the thing so the thing can happen—time to sling some bullshit!'
i tried to put up with it because i was so near the end, and i've been struggling with it for a couple days, but—
but i cannot.
julio out!
but look: if you like the sound of the book the blurb advertises, it's fine. while the plot is completely unhinged, the prose is only occasionally overwrought.
just turn off your brain.
and if you like
...turn off your brain also.
and god help you if you can't.
as for me:
i think this book is a retroactive dafuquery taco.
More...