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simonlorden's review
3.0
This book was February's Sapphic Book Club read hosted by @sapphicliterature.
I... read this entire book and I honestly don't have much to say about it?
I enjoyed the relationship between the three protagonists (Aela and Brynne, who are two women in a sort-of-romantic relationship, and Del, who becomes friends with both of them). Looking back, the overall plot was also interesting - and yet, the execution felt lacking. I felt myself skimming through pages of descriptions instead of reading them. I can't really put my finger on it, but somehow the writing couldn't hold my attention despite the fact that I liked the characters and the plot.
Hence why it's a 3-star read - it didn't leave a lasting impression in either a positive or a negative direction.
I... read this entire book and I honestly don't have much to say about it?
I enjoyed the relationship between the three protagonists (Aela and Brynne, who are two women in a sort-of-romantic relationship, and Del, who becomes friends with both of them). Looking back, the overall plot was also interesting - and yet, the execution felt lacking. I felt myself skimming through pages of descriptions instead of reading them. I can't really put my finger on it, but somehow the writing couldn't hold my attention despite the fact that I liked the characters and the plot.
Hence why it's a 3-star read - it didn't leave a lasting impression in either a positive or a negative direction.
transwitch's review
3.0
I received a copy of this book from Sapphic Book Club in exchange for an honest review.
So, first off. I want to preface with the fact that despite everything I'm about to say, I did like the book. The world was interesting and the characters were fun. The story - in spite of a few things I'll be getting into shortly - was good.
Now. The pacing of the book was rough in places; the very first pages of the book thrust the reader into a battle with no context for the characters, world, or why this is happening. There are chapters where weeks or months pass by in the world, and we're told this in single, throwaway lines with no real sense of time passing. Things like Del and Aela's friendship develop suddenly, and reveals like the fact that Aela and Del once knew each other or that Aela killed Brynne's father aren't given space to develop, simply dropped at the reader's feet.
Second, we need to talk about the colonialist elephant in the room.
The main plot of the back half revolves around the mystery of the Sarkany, and what happened to them. It turns out that Del's ancestors paid the naga to kill the Sarkany so they could move in and start mining the gold. This means that the history of this world, essentially, is that an imperialist force paid an indigenous population to commit genocide against a second indigenous population, which they did. That imperialist force then moved into the country, occupying the structures that the indigenous population left behind, and began hunting the second people there as monsters. The main antagonist of the back half of the book is the indigenous god, who is obviously evil because she wants revenge against the people who invaded her land and paid the naga to commit genocide against the Sarkany.
I do not think the author is a bad person, or that they wrote these tropes in intentionally. To me, it reads like someone who had an interesting idea and simply failed to examine it in the light of our world, where imperialist forces can and have committed atrocities like this, and where indigenous peoples face ongoing hardship and destruction of their cultures. However, they are present in the book, and what enjoyment I got from the book happened in spite of this. If, in the future, Ross could avoid aspects like this, I think I will enjoy their work a great deal.
So, first off. I want to preface with the fact that despite everything I'm about to say, I did like the book. The world was interesting and the characters were fun. The story - in spite of a few things I'll be getting into shortly - was good.
Now. The pacing of the book was rough in places; the very first pages of the book thrust the reader into a battle with no context for the characters, world, or why this is happening. There are chapters where weeks or months pass by in the world, and we're told this in single, throwaway lines with no real sense of time passing. Things like Del and Aela's friendship develop suddenly, and reveals like the fact that Aela and Del once knew each other or that Aela killed Brynne's father aren't given space to develop, simply dropped at the reader's feet.
Second, we need to talk about the colonialist elephant in the room.
The main plot of the back half revolves around the mystery of the Sarkany, and what happened to them. It turns out that Del's ancestors paid the naga to kill the Sarkany so they could move in and start mining the gold. This means that the history of this world, essentially, is that an imperialist force paid an indigenous population to commit genocide against a second indigenous population, which they did. That imperialist force then moved into the country, occupying the structures that the indigenous population left behind, and began hunting the second people there as monsters. The main antagonist of the back half of the book is the indigenous god, who is obviously evil because she wants revenge against the people who invaded her land and paid the naga to commit genocide against the Sarkany.
I do not think the author is a bad person, or that they wrote these tropes in intentionally. To me, it reads like someone who had an interesting idea and simply failed to examine it in the light of our world, where imperialist forces can and have committed atrocities like this, and where indigenous peoples face ongoing hardship and destruction of their cultures. However, they are present in the book, and what enjoyment I got from the book happened in spite of this. If, in the future, Ross could avoid aspects like this, I think I will enjoy their work a great deal.
localbeehunter's review
4.0
This book is February's Sapphic Book Club read hosted by @sapphicliterature.
Aela - a corsair trying to distance herself from her roots and her wild magic, Del - a soldier full of secrets, fiercely chasing the past, and Brynne - a seemingly simple girl thrown into the world of royalty. All of them are so much more than it firstly appears. All of them are tangled together. All of them help each other grow.
I loved that the characters have their distinctive voice and every POV reads differently. It felt like really getting into their heads and seeing every situation through their eyes.
The world is greatly developed from the mythology to the geography and all of this is done with no info-dumping. The mysterious monsters which Aela is blackmailed to hunt are not one-dimensional and everything is much deeper than it seems - figuratively and literally. Everything is connected and every bit of information becomes relevant later on.
The book is also rich in representation: there's three main characters and two of them are women, two of them are sapphic, two of them are people of colour, one is disabled, and one is plump.
My main issues were with a somewhat slow pace in the first half of the book and some parts would need a bit more editing. I also wanted more of Brynne's POV but I undersand than including it too early would reveal too much and the suspense was crutial.
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