Tag: fantasy

Adult, Reviews

BOOK REVIEW: TO CLUTCH A RAZOR by VERONICA ROTH

I really enjoyed When Among Crows when I read it last year, so I went into To Clutch a Razor expecting to also enjoy it. What I did not expect was to be so thoroughly blown away by this book. To Clutch a Razor does everything that When Among Crows did–great worldbuilding, fleshed-out characters, memorable scenes–but considerably ups the ante in pretty much every way. The stakes have always been high, and here they are even higher. Where When Among Crows spent some time introducing the world and its characters to us, To Clutch a Razor picks up from where we left off and immediately gets going. There’s a lot that’s new here–new characters, new story, new places–but that’s not to say there’s no development for the characters we already know, because there is: we learn so much more about Dymitr’s family in particular, their dynamics and of course his complicated feelings growing up as a Knight alongside them. Dymitr has always been such a compelling character–still waters run deep, and his waters have long been still–and here he becomes all the more so. To see him with his family only makes his story more poignant, his development all the more earned.

When I first read it, what especially struck me about When Among Crows was Veronica Roth’s ability to write these big, standout scenes, linchpin moments that the story leads up to and after which the characters are fundamentally changed. In To Clutch a Razor, Roth gives us more of these scenes, and let me tell you, she spares no punches. The characters have always had to stare down the barrel of impossible situations without flinching, and so do we: Roth’s writing makes sure of it. It’s what makes these novellas stand out to me, these unforgettable centerpiece scenes that are so viscerally striking that they just become etched into your memory.

I really was not expecting to be so blindsided by this novella. I always thought it was going to be good, but I didn’t think it would be as emotional as it was, and move me as much as it did (I definitely cried). This novella series has been such a gem and I really hope a third book is coming because I would love to see where this story goes next.

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Adult, Reviews

BOOK REVIEW: KATABASIS by R.F. KUANG

Katabasis is Info Dump: The Novel. It’s a novel that seems to mistake information for narrative, so caught up in its ideas and “clever” logic that it loses sight of basically everything else. How could a novel this long have been so allergic to storytelling? I swear, it felt like all the information in this book was delivered through massive chunks of exposition. Explaining how Hell works? Massive chunk of exposition. Exploring the characters’ lives and experiences? Massive chunk of exposition. Critical moment where the characters finally talk to each other? Massive chunk of exposition.

And it’s not even that it’s a lazy novel, but rather that its energy is entirely misdirected: rather than spend time fleshing out its characters’ dynamics or storylines (which, let me tell you, are frustratingly threadbare and massively underwhelming), it funnels almost all its energy into explaining scholarly theories and paradoxes and logic and math etc etc etc. And the fact of the matter is, I can’t invest in ~Ideas~ and ~Theory~ when they’re not grounded in solid storytelling with solid character dynamics. The result being that Katabasis read like a textbook with the thin veneer of a novel imposed onto it. This whole novel just felt like an inside joke I didn’t get–and by the end, I really had no desire to “get” it, anyway.

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Adult, Reviews

BOOK REVIEW: THE RAVEN SCHOLAR by ANTONIA HODGSON

The Raven Scholar is an absolute breath of fresh air. It’s a novel that does it all, and does it all pretty much perfectly. To me, it is the epitome of storytelling, a novel that asks you to sit down and listen because it’s about to tell you a TALE. And tell you a tale it does: the story is fresh, thrilling, and full of surprises; the world is sprawling and vibrant, animated with so much life and nuance.

And the characters! Hodgson has such a talent for writing characters that you think you don’t care about, or maybe write off as marginal, and then next thing you know you’re crying over them because you’re hit so hard by their stories. (Literally two chapters into this novel and I was already invested in its characters.) This is the magic of Hodgson’s writing: she pays so much attention to her characters, weaving these little threads of their stories throughout the novel, letting them slowly but surely come together, acquire heft, until in the end they amount to a character that you feel you know and care about deeply, even when you might’ve initially written them off. The sheer craft and finesse that it takes to pull this off is not to be understated, but Hodgson makes it all look so easy.

Another thing I’d be remiss not to mention is the narrative voice of this novel. Part of why The Raven Scholar is such a pleasure to read is the storytelling, and part of that is the pitch-perfect tone: sincere and heartfelt when it needs to be, but also so fun, funny and tongue-in-cheek in a way that I absolutely adored. The narrative voice is confident, assured, and not afraid to take risks, to play a little, to not always take things so seriously just for the sheer fun of it. Given how doom and gloom SFF novels tend to be (and I say that as a big SFF fan myself), I was thrilled to find an SFF novel that had stakes and fun.

I cannot stress how much of an absolute delight this novel was to read. I felt like a little kid reading it, absorbed in its world, attached to its characters, invested in its story. It’s a 700-page novel and yet I flew through it in 4 days. The Raven Scholar is truly a gift from the SFF gods, and if this is Antonia Hodgson’s debut then I can only imagine the incredible novels that are coming our way in the next couple of years.

Thanks so much to Orbit for the review copy!

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