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unavezmas's review
fast-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
Only history will tell whether we chose right, great Singer. But choose we did, and it cannot be unchosen now
I read The stone knife and loved it. It's so enchanting and interesting. A bunch of ragtags trying to stall the Empire of Songs knowing they probably won't live to fight another day is absolutely my thing. Also cunning and women who absolutely will kill and torture anyone who stands in her way. š The jaguar path develops it pretty well. Until the end. When the author pulls skeleton key out of her pocket and says it's always been there she just forgot to mention it. I am sorry but that's not good writing. Not only that but the plot twist destroyed all the previous character writing. If all character actions and thoughts they only care about themselves but then you say they are actually selfless they were just pretending to be selfish because reasons. It doesn't make any sense. It's not even WHAT they did as much as much WHY they did it.
On top of that there are the drowned which Imperials treat like gods (who occasionally eat people) and the song which can influence people.
I liked the ideas behind the imperialism aspect of it all. Nobody is forbidden from practising their culture. It's just easier to be as Pechaqueh as you can. By choice if not by blood. And then there are those half-Pechaqueh born of war crimes... Also slaves can and do work their way up the social hierarchy. I just wish there were more of it. I wish we knew more about other tribes cultures and beliefs because half the time we only get a name and maybe one tradition. Or how people from different tribes interact with each other.
The dark feather is fine. It makes sense about 60% of the time which is less than I hoped for and more than I feared. I didn't care for the magic plotline at all. Too complicated and abstract. I don't have much to say about the book. I liked some aspects of it and disliked others. There's just too many plotlines I gave up trying to keep track of them all halfway through.
The love triangle involving three men was my favorite aspect lol. I had no idea how it's gonna be resolved. I don't normally like love triangles but this one felt like organic continuation of their respective character arcs.
I wanted to like this book but alas. Thank you Netgalley and HarperCollins for providing me with digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.
I read The stone knife and loved it. It's so enchanting and interesting. A bunch of ragtags trying to stall the Empire of Songs knowing they probably won't live to fight another day is absolutely my thing. Also cunning and women who absolutely will kill and torture anyone who stands in her way. š The jaguar path develops it pretty well. Until the end. When the author pulls skeleton key out of her pocket and says it's always been there she just forgot to mention it. I am sorry but that's not good writing. Not only that but the plot twist destroyed all the previous character writing. If all character actions and thoughts they only care about themselves but then you say they are actually selfless they were just pretending to be selfish because reasons. It doesn't make any sense. It's not even WHAT they did as much as much WHY they did it.
On top of that there are the drowned which Imperials treat like gods (who occasionally eat people) and the song which can influence people.
I liked the ideas behind the imperialism aspect of it all. Nobody is forbidden from practising their culture. It's just easier to be as Pechaqueh as you can. By choice if not by blood. And then there are those half-Pechaqueh born of war crimes... Also slaves can and do work their way up the social hierarchy. I just wish there were more of it. I wish we knew more about other tribes cultures and beliefs because half the time we only get a name and maybe one tradition. Or how people from different tribes interact with each other.
The dark feather is fine. It makes sense about 60% of the time which is less than I hoped for and more than I feared. I didn't care for the magic plotline at all. Too complicated and abstract. I don't have much to say about the book. I liked some aspects of it and disliked others. There's just too many plotlines I gave up trying to keep track of them all halfway through.
The love triangle involving three men was my favorite aspect lol. I had no idea how it's gonna be resolved. I don't normally like love triangles but this one felt like organic continuation of their respective character arcs.
I wanted to like this book but alas. Thank you Netgalley and HarperCollins for providing me with digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.
kitvaria_sarene's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
5.0
The Dark Feather by Anna Stephens delivers an epic conclusion to one of the best dark fantasy series I've read.
This book has ripped out my heart and stomped on it a couple of times, but it also made me feel hope. There is a perfectly struck balance between the horrendous events and those (big and small) moments of gratification and joy.
The characters are absolutely one of the main strengths of this series. They are all incredibly well written, and feel totally real. All the characters have depths of motivation and mindset that make their actions not just understandable but entirely reasonable, so that you even empathise or sympathise with the villains. At other times you can feel hate towards the supposed heroes. There are no stereotypes, instead all the characters have a whole range of facets, which meant I ended up rooting for almost all of them at different points in the story. When you find yourself feeling for the obviously wrong people, then you know a writer knows their craft to the bones.
For example, if you follow my reviews, you know how much I usually detest romance. Here, some of the romantic relationships are so integral to the characters that I was totally hooked and fully invested in how things turned out. None of it felt like the artificial drama - the utterly avoidable manufactured conflict - that you so often see. Instead it was just human all the way through. People being believable and credible, doing the best they could in the circumstances. If delivering that kind of authenticity is not a mark of the highest craft, I don't know what is!
The world building is superb, and the politics get ever more entangled. The way the cultures, religions and societies are entwined again illustrated exceptional levels of the writerās craft. With a lot of books it feels like there's a nice two dimensional background, like the backdrop on a theatre stage. Here it feels utterly three dimensional, as though I just walked right into this world, and could have lifted any stone, or walked around any corner and the world would still have been fully fleshed out in depth and detail.
All in all this one emotional rollercoaster of a story, which managed to leave me both hollowed out, and yet somehow also full of hope. How that works? Some kind of magicā¦
I was utterly satisfied, even though I felt like yelling at the author quite a few times along the way. Some of these decisions really hurt, but they also all feel very organic, and just needed to happen.
It'll take me a while to fully digest this, as the best stories do!
This book has ripped out my heart and stomped on it a couple of times, but it also made me feel hope. There is a perfectly struck balance between the horrendous events and those (big and small) moments of gratification and joy.
The characters are absolutely one of the main strengths of this series. They are all incredibly well written, and feel totally real. All the characters have depths of motivation and mindset that make their actions not just understandable but entirely reasonable, so that you even empathise or sympathise with the villains. At other times you can feel hate towards the supposed heroes. There are no stereotypes, instead all the characters have a whole range of facets, which meant I ended up rooting for almost all of them at different points in the story. When you find yourself feeling for the obviously wrong people, then you know a writer knows their craft to the bones.
For example, if you follow my reviews, you know how much I usually detest romance. Here, some of the romantic relationships are so integral to the characters that I was totally hooked and fully invested in how things turned out. None of it felt like the artificial drama - the utterly avoidable manufactured conflict - that you so often see. Instead it was just human all the way through. People being believable and credible, doing the best they could in the circumstances. If delivering that kind of authenticity is not a mark of the highest craft, I don't know what is!
The world building is superb, and the politics get ever more entangled. The way the cultures, religions and societies are entwined again illustrated exceptional levels of the writerās craft. With a lot of books it feels like there's a nice two dimensional background, like the backdrop on a theatre stage. Here it feels utterly three dimensional, as though I just walked right into this world, and could have lifted any stone, or walked around any corner and the world would still have been fully fleshed out in depth and detail.
All in all this one emotional rollercoaster of a story, which managed to leave me both hollowed out, and yet somehow also full of hope. How that works? Some kind of magicā¦
I was utterly satisfied, even though I felt like yelling at the author quite a few times along the way. Some of these decisions really hurt, but they also all feel very organic, and just needed to happen.
It'll take me a while to fully digest this, as the best stories do!
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