K. D. Castner

DNF - I'm not sure where to begin. The opening prologue is kind of confusing and narratively a mess to read. I sort of liked Cadis and Iren at first, but ugh Suki.

I understand what the author was trying to achieve (Suki is basically emotionally and mentally unhinged), but her POV chapters were too long. You'd go from Iren, who made some very intriguing and intelligent observations to Cadis, who seemed the most hopeful of the bunch, to Rhea who was too afraid to be much use and then Suki who spoke in half thoughts and weird cryptic (always with the paranthesis (no thought had only one (multiple layers))) way.

So I skipped to the end and basically everything I read was mistaken and a lie and you know what life is too short to make sense of this mess.… (mehr)

"this book isn't a two-star read you all are just mean" meme

This was a really pleasant surprise. I bought it to pad my cart on an online order because the cover was nice, and ended up finding a tidy and tight little story that really fascinated me with its world-build and characters. It could use a couple sentences to paint whole swaths of the world, like by having the POVs prefaced with nursery rhymes, tiny references to folk tales, and my FAVOURITE thing, explaining cultures, people, and systems through jokes, insults, or metaphors (ugh, when they said that Iren's father was surprised a knife in the back didn't give him the floor for an articulate debate? genius). I'll definitely come back here to dot the book with notes.

It's really short and feels really short, almost like the prologue to a bigger story (I'm surprised there isn't a sequel), but I enjoyed it despite my concern and confusion as we rushed up to the end and things weren't tying themselves up.

All in all a nice surprise and more encouragement to just. Pick stuff up and buy it for the fun of it, not because someone else told me so.… (mehr)