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A review by willowwraithpress
Endsinger by Jay Kristoff
5.0
Endsinger by Jay Kristoff, book 3 of The Lotus War Trilogy
Brief Summary:
With betrayal on all sides, Yukiko, Buruu, and the rest of the fading group of rebels are holed up in the Fox Clan's city, and worse things are about to force the world into one giant fight for mankind. As the rebels try to destroy the Lotus Guild's Earthcrusher behemoth, the remaining forces of the shattered Shogun are bearing down on Yukiko's group. As Kin reintegrates himself into the Guild, he uncovers more secretive backstory of the First Bloom and the Inquisitors. Hana and Yoshi come face-to-face with their demons, aka their gaijin past. And to top it all off, the Endsinger, creator of all life and death is trying to tear a hole in the world and release her "children."
What Works:
I want to start off by saying I love Mr. Kristoff's writing. I read Nevernight prior to The Lotus War and I instantly fell in love with Mia and Mr. Kristoff's particular style. I thought Yukiko and Buruu's relationship growth over the first book was excellent as a debut author, and there was an underlying joyousness in that book that bespoke of an author coming into his voice. Now in book two, I could still see that growth Mr. Kristoff was working toward, but it wasn't until book 3 where you could sense he truly found his writing voice.
I understand that not everyone is a fan of more visceral writing/sentence structure.
For example, take this passage: The ascent was torturous, fumbling in the dark, fingers scrabbling against the pipeline's greasy innards.
I freaking love this, but how we are trained in school, this is not remotely grammatically correct. It just feels choppy and wrong to our trained minds, and most authors tend to not veer away from the standard sentence structure. That is one thing I love about Mr. Kristoff's style, he goes as far away from it as you can think of. You saw the early stages of it in book 1, the teenage years in book 2, but in book 3, the visceral style was fully matured.
And I loved every second of it (again, not everyone might agree).
As much as I didn't enjoy it in book 2 as much, the fact that book 3 is an ensemble story really helped make this book great. There is so much going on in this book that it would be impossible to only have a handful of POVs. Aside from Yukiko remaining fun, I want to single out two POVs that really stood out:
- Hana became a truly awesome character. I like how she became a Stormdancer like Yukiko, but her arc wasn't the same. She had her moments where she was still the flawed gutter child of mixed heritage and I thought that was excellent behavior/mannerism within the overall plot. Her interaction with Akihito from book 2 grew in this book and I was happy to see them come together. And with how that all went down, bravo Mr. Kristoff, bravo. Didn't see that coming! But I also truly enjoyed her relationship with Kaiah, though due to constraints of plot, it didn't get as much time to grow like Yukiko/Buruu, but I'm not disappointed at all.
- Kin, without spoilers, was hands down my favorite character in this entire series. The route he took in book 2 and the way in which it all played out in book 3 was great! It didn't take long for things to become clear, but everything in his arc was cool and twisty. I loved how his interaction with his "What Will Be" dream and the Guild was fun to watch unfold.
One thing Mr. Kristoff knows how to do very well is to make a giant battle all seem helter-skelter as well as beating with emotional heart. The battle between the rebels, thunder tigers, Guild, gaijin, and other stray characters was close to 150 pages long. Yet, it didn't feel that long because of all that was going on at the same time. There were four different subplots happening at this time: 1. war in the sky. 2. battle on the Earthcrusher. 3. Hana and the gaijin. 4. attack on the First Bloom (Guild HQ). Each one of these things are crucial to the overall success of the book, but none are short-changed at all. Just excellent weaving back and forth, keeping everything flowing and tense.
As much as I really didn't like the whole Yukiko/Hiro love subplot thing from the first book to this one, the way in which it all came to a head was well-crafted and satisfying as a reader.
So the ending, whew, grab the Kleenexes and prepare for all the feels. Even after all the deaths along the way (of which there were a toooooon, and well written too, very emotional!) there was still one giant hurdle left for the survivors, and Yukiko in particular. Now without spoiling how it goes, the previous Stormdancer and his thunder tiger went into legend by sealing the fate of their world with their blood. And Yukiko and Buruu know that only a Stormdancer's sacrifice will make the plan work. Honestly, I'm pretty good at picking up on plot threads and if I wasn't, I never would have seen this coming, that is how subtle Mr. Kristoff was in setting up this conclusion (it's definitely built in, you can see it if you try hard enough to find it). But the manner in which the finale played out was not something I expected, it came from a completely different point. That's great writing there!
One last thing I love about Mr. Kristoff's style is that he knows how to leave scenes on a cliffhanger. There is a chapter toward the end of the major battle between all the factions (not the end battle though) where there are multiple POVs going through an emotional moment. And then, just when the characters are about to hit that crescendo, Mr. Kristoff ends that scene and moves onto another one. Now to do it once every chapter, I see that all the time, but this was at least three characters with very heightened emotional factors being dragged up the mountain top here, and when they are about to fall, BAM, next scene and we are left hanging to see if they survive or not (and because of all the death, you never truly know in this book). But what truly makes this part of the book great is that each cliffhanger ends with the exact same word: Squeeze. So much connotation in one single word. Just excellent stuff!
What doesn't Work:
There really wasn't a whole lot that I didn't like about this story's conclusion. Although, even though he turned out OK in the end, I still wasn't a huge fan of Yoshi's character. He was kinda funny though, but most of his scenes were just there.
Honestly, I really didn't need the gaijin POV Aleksandar. I get that he was brought on to give a different perspective, but in the end, he really didn't add anything we couldn't have had with Hana or Piotr.
Rating:
5 out of 5
Brief Summary:
With betrayal on all sides, Yukiko, Buruu, and the rest of the fading group of rebels are holed up in the Fox Clan's city, and worse things are about to force the world into one giant fight for mankind. As the rebels try to destroy the Lotus Guild's Earthcrusher behemoth, the remaining forces of the shattered Shogun are bearing down on Yukiko's group. As Kin reintegrates himself into the Guild, he uncovers more secretive backstory of the First Bloom and the Inquisitors. Hana and Yoshi come face-to-face with their demons, aka their gaijin past. And to top it all off, the Endsinger, creator of all life and death is trying to tear a hole in the world and release her "children."
What Works:
I want to start off by saying I love Mr. Kristoff's writing. I read Nevernight prior to The Lotus War and I instantly fell in love with Mia and Mr. Kristoff's particular style. I thought Yukiko and Buruu's relationship growth over the first book was excellent as a debut author, and there was an underlying joyousness in that book that bespoke of an author coming into his voice. Now in book two, I could still see that growth Mr. Kristoff was working toward, but it wasn't until book 3 where you could sense he truly found his writing voice.
I understand that not everyone is a fan of more visceral writing/sentence structure.
For example, take this passage: The ascent was torturous, fumbling in the dark, fingers scrabbling against the pipeline's greasy innards.
I freaking love this, but how we are trained in school, this is not remotely grammatically correct. It just feels choppy and wrong to our trained minds, and most authors tend to not veer away from the standard sentence structure. That is one thing I love about Mr. Kristoff's style, he goes as far away from it as you can think of. You saw the early stages of it in book 1, the teenage years in book 2, but in book 3, the visceral style was fully matured.
And I loved every second of it (again, not everyone might agree).
As much as I didn't enjoy it in book 2 as much, the fact that book 3 is an ensemble story really helped make this book great. There is so much going on in this book that it would be impossible to only have a handful of POVs. Aside from Yukiko remaining fun, I want to single out two POVs that really stood out:
- Hana became a truly awesome character. I like how she became a Stormdancer like Yukiko, but her arc wasn't the same. She had her moments where she was still the flawed gutter child of mixed heritage and I thought that was excellent behavior/mannerism within the overall plot. Her interaction with Akihito from book 2 grew in this book and I was happy to see them come together. And with how that all went down, bravo Mr. Kristoff, bravo. Didn't see that coming! But I also truly enjoyed her relationship with Kaiah, though due to constraints of plot, it didn't get as much time to grow like Yukiko/Buruu, but I'm not disappointed at all.
- Kin, without spoilers, was hands down my favorite character in this entire series. The route he took in book 2 and the way in which it all played out in book 3 was great! It didn't take long for things to become clear, but everything in his arc was cool and twisty. I loved how his interaction with his "What Will Be" dream and the Guild was fun to watch unfold.
One thing Mr. Kristoff knows how to do very well is to make a giant battle all seem helter-skelter as well as beating with emotional heart. The battle between the rebels, thunder tigers, Guild, gaijin, and other stray characters was close to 150 pages long. Yet, it didn't feel that long because of all that was going on at the same time. There were four different subplots happening at this time: 1. war in the sky. 2. battle on the Earthcrusher. 3. Hana and the gaijin. 4. attack on the First Bloom (Guild HQ). Each one of these things are crucial to the overall success of the book, but none are short-changed at all. Just excellent weaving back and forth, keeping everything flowing and tense.
As much as I really didn't like the whole Yukiko/Hiro love subplot thing from the first book to this one, the way in which it all came to a head was well-crafted and satisfying as a reader.
So the ending, whew, grab the Kleenexes and prepare for all the feels. Even after all the deaths along the way (of which there were a toooooon, and well written too, very emotional!) there was still one giant hurdle left for the survivors, and Yukiko in particular. Now without spoiling how it goes, the previous Stormdancer and his thunder tiger went into legend by sealing the fate of their world with their blood. And Yukiko and Buruu know that only a Stormdancer's sacrifice will make the plan work. Honestly, I'm pretty good at picking up on plot threads and if I wasn't, I never would have seen this coming, that is how subtle Mr. Kristoff was in setting up this conclusion (it's definitely built in, you can see it if you try hard enough to find it). But the manner in which the finale played out was not something I expected, it came from a completely different point. That's great writing there!
One last thing I love about Mr. Kristoff's style is that he knows how to leave scenes on a cliffhanger. There is a chapter toward the end of the major battle between all the factions (not the end battle though) where there are multiple POVs going through an emotional moment. And then, just when the characters are about to hit that crescendo, Mr. Kristoff ends that scene and moves onto another one. Now to do it once every chapter, I see that all the time, but this was at least three characters with very heightened emotional factors being dragged up the mountain top here, and when they are about to fall, BAM, next scene and we are left hanging to see if they survive or not (and because of all the death, you never truly know in this book). But what truly makes this part of the book great is that each cliffhanger ends with the exact same word: Squeeze. So much connotation in one single word. Just excellent stuff!
What doesn't Work:
There really wasn't a whole lot that I didn't like about this story's conclusion. Although, even though he turned out OK in the end, I still wasn't a huge fan of Yoshi's character. He was kinda funny though, but most of his scenes were just there.
Honestly, I really didn't need the gaijin POV Aleksandar. I get that he was brought on to give a different perspective, but in the end, he really didn't add anything we couldn't have had with Hana or Piotr.
Rating:
5 out of 5