Overall rating: 4.5/5
I really loved this book. I think this is one of the best books I’ve read this year. This book is a new adult, fantasy romance by Samantha Shannon. I just want to mention that this book is not as long as it looks - it’s about 848 pages but about the same thickness as Oathbringer which is 1400 pages.
This book is about a land named Inys ruled by a queen named Sabran. She is responsible for keeping a monster that was previously slain in history named ‘the Nameless One’ at bay, and in order to do that, she has to produce an heir. This is because according to the legends, as long as her bloodline is on the throne the Nameless One will not be released. Ead is her lady in waiting and has come into the court under a false identity tasked with protecting Sabran. In the East, we follow Tané, who is currently training to become a dragon rider. The East still worships dragons as a kind of godlike figure whilst the west fears them and views them as evil. We don’t actually get a perspective from Sabran but we get a perspective from two other characters who are difficult to describe without giving away the plot.
One of the best and most widely known things about this book is that it contains a sapphic relationship at its core, and I absolutely loved how this relationship was handled. This is a world where homophobia and race doesn’t play a role in dictating who you are allowed to date, but faith and status does. I really like this concept because I have always questioned: a world with magic is believable, but a world without homophobia isn’t? This was an extremely cute, slow burn relationship that I absolutely adored. Honestly, the romance was part of the reason I kept reading at some spots.
I also love the world. We follow four different protagonists (these are not the perspectives mentioned on the back of the book. Confusing, I know.) and they are almost always in different parts of the world, so we get to explore different cultures and lands. I am the type of person who loves picking apart lore and the world so I can dive deeper into the story, so this really fulfilled this need. This book did the best that it could being a standalone novel in developing a big, epic fantasy world.
The characters were definitely this book’s strongest point, though. The four main protagonists are all so well developed with fleshed out backstories and personalities. If you got to know the book well enough, you could probably read an excerpt from their POV and be able to tell who was speaking because of how distinct these characters are. I found the way their stories intertwined so fascinating and I love how they all came together in the end.
This book is strongly political and lacked a lot of action sequences, which I don’t mind and I actually really loved. I love a book that can play off of a complex political landscape in order to build tension, but this is important to note for those who read fantasy for the action. Along with this, I felt that the final battle scene was a little bit lacking. I can’t really put my finger on it, but I just wasn’t really satisfied. They spent so much time building up to that one final, epic battle and it went by so quickly.
This book is not without its flaws. I found it really difficult to get through the first 300-400 pages as the first half was incredibly slow, and I didn’t really feel like anything was happening. I don’t usually mind slow world building, this occurs in my favourite series the Stormlight Archives by Brandon Sanderson which infamously has multiple false beginnings, so I obviously don’t mind this usually, but this was just way too slow, even for me. It took me about double the amount of time to get through the first half versus the second, but once you pass that 50% mark, it’s really amazing. It’s really worth pushing through just to get to the end. There’s also a lot of info dumping which can be quite jarring and definitely pulled me out of the story in certain areas. This is the main reason why I had to knock it down from a 5 star book to a 4.5 book. This part fell a little short for me.
Not a lot actually happens in this book which can be a drawback if you are a plot driven reader, which I am but it’s not as important as character to me, so I could still get through and enjoy this book. I have heard from some of my friends who value plot more than I do that they didn’t really enjoy the book personally because it is just so lacking in plot, but they can see the appeal. It’s really one of those books where you get to the end and you really can’t even properly summarise it because it feels like nothing really happened minus a few major events and the final battle. This really contributed to the slow pace of the story.
Overall, this book has its pros and its cons. If you’re a person who loves well developed romance with a character driven story and a complex political landscape, I would highly recommend this book to you. I wouldn’t say this is the best introduction to adult fantasy because the world building and info dumping can get confusing really fast. For that, I would recommend Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson or Vicious by V.E. Schwab. However, if you prefer a story with a lot of plot and action, I would hesitate to recommend this book. Either way, I really enjoyed this story and if this sounds interesting to you I think this book is worth a read whether or not you are a plot or character driven reader.
