sophiesometimesreads's reviews
262 reviews

That ending absolutely wrecked me 😭

I was so excited for this book after loving Iron Widow and I have to say I was a little disappointed, but I didn't think this was a bad book and some of these may come from the fact that I didn't reread Iron Widow before jumping into this, so I'll get into the things I liked and the things that didn't work for me.

Things I enjoyed:
- I loved being back in the world with the Chrysalises and the fighting
- The Hundun and gods plots
- Good talk of consent, particulalry during intimate scenes (see below for discussion on why I'm not calling this smut scenes like others have)
- Women empowerment!!!

The things that didn't work for me:
- It felt slow through the middle and I don't necessarily automatically dislike slower pace but I kind of got bored through the middle.
- After wonderful character development in the first book, Zetian's character felt kind of stagnant during this book.
- The dynamic between Zetian and Qin Zheng didn't work for me and I didn't like how she kept saying "oh I can't do this because Qin Zheng won't allow it" over and over.
- Not enough Shimin.
- Took us too long to circle back around to the gods plotline, which was the plot that intrigued me the most.
- A lot of telling, not a much showing, which made some of the political points, whilst valid and I agree with them, seem heavy-handed at times.

There has been some discussion, at least in some spheres on social media, about the sex/intimate scenes in this book and whether or not they constitute smut, and I think this is mostly a factor of the publishing industry instead of the author. This book should definitely be considered New Adult. I don't think it's inappropriate for people in the middle to upper end traditional YA age range at all, as they are mostly quite vague, but I think that we need an expectation of the level of discussion of sex and extent of sex scenes in certain age range books so readers, particulalry younger readers, can be prepared with the level of these factors when to go into these books. I'm not saying teenagers shouldn't be reading these sex scenes, but the reader should be able to expect the level of these scenes going in, and given YA goes down to 12 years old, the scenes in this book could be too much for someone in the lower end (and I know it would've been a lot for me when I was deep into YA books). Like I said, I think this is a publishing thing and not necessarily this book, as the scenes were vague enough for the age range, in my opinion. I also wouldn't classify it as smut, as there was not much detail to the acts themselves, moreso the lead up. I don't know if they were completely necessary to the book, particulalry given I didn't feel the chemistry between the characters anyway, but that doesn't take away from these points above. MAKE NEW ADULT A THING!!!!

Anyway, I will still likely pick up the third book to see how this ends.

This is such an important read, showing how the Zionist agenda was originally built upon racism, white supremacy and ethnic cleansing. Though some of this felt quite dense with a lot of names and places that didn't stick with me, the general outline and the key points are very important for everyone, particulalry in the current context in Palestine. The audiobook also made a lot of it easier to get through, and allowed me to not get bogged down in some of the details in order to get the bigger picture, which was the main thing I, personally, wanted to get from this book. I particularly appreciated the last few chapters, which reflect on the Nakba and how it is incorporated (or, more accurately, not incorporated) into Israeli history and society. 

A really interesting, deep and powerful lecture connecting the literary technique/device of recognition and the genocide, occupation and ethnic cleansing in Palestine, along with the global West's view of these. I listened to the audiobook narrated by the author, which I think gave this more impact. This is a must-read for everyone, particularly given the length (at ~80 pages or 1 hour).

I really don't know how I feel about this and the number I have put on it is somewhat arbitrary, but my complete thoughts are below.

The fictional parts I did enjoy, and the focus on women's stories, particularly through not naming the male serial killer in the book and telling the story through the eyes of a full female cast. 

On the other hand, it didn't sit well with me that this used real life events and real names of The Defendant's victims. These people were real people with real, living families and friends, and it seemed counterproductive to the moral of the story to make these events a fictionalised version of real tragedies. The author was verging on doing what she was criticising the press of doing in the novel - profiting off the (female) victims of a horrific man. 

I went into this thinking it was loosely based off the crimes of this notorious serial killer (who we have all heard of but I won't name in line with this book's purpose), but it is really a fictional retelling of true events which feels a little bit icky to me. I think this would have worked so much better had the story been completely fictionalised and only vaguely referenced things from notorious serial killers of the past.

I love these characters so much, but the plot just didn't quite live up to the first book for me, particulalry in terms of pacing and twists. I still really enjoyed this though and love the duology as a whole!

Sword Catcher is a slower-paced, character-driven political fantasy that might not be for everyone but I really enjoyed it. I'm starting to think political fantasy is my type of fantasy.

The worldbuilding, in true CC fashion, was really well done and I felt like I understood everything without too much info-dumping.

I really enjoyed the perspective of both characters and the morally grey nature of their actions. I felt a bit conflicted about Conor as a character, but I think that's on purpose by the author and it was set up well for his character arc throughout the rest of the story. Some of the side characters could've been fleshed out a bit more, but I feel like this may come in future books.

This book is a lot of set up for the next books. I often like my books to feel a bit more self-contained as a story, but this didn't impact my experience too much as I was invested in the story and characters, and so the almost slice-of-life feel of the book worked for me. 

Maybe if I thought hard enough, this may sit around a 3.5 but I really enjoyed it and read it relatively quickly for me and fantasy so I'm putting it at a 4 star for enjoyment on my part.

I am really excited to read the second book in March because I'm still thinking about Lin and Kel hours after finishing this book!

I just don't think Ali Hazelwood is ever going to be a favourite author for me. I enjoyed this generally, but it wasn't a stand out for me. Her writing style is fun at times but can be cringy at others. The characters felt similar to the other book I've read from her (which seems to be a common theme), though I enjoyed the video game setting/conversations. I think part of the reason this didn't work as well as others I've read from her, though, is due to the narrator. I didn't particularly gel with the narration style, and it annoyed me that she pronounced Viola as Vila and Otto as Auto, it took me two hours to realise "Auto" was actually called Otto. Overall, a bit of a fun time to listen to when doing chores but nothing special.