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the character, not the book. the book was pretty good. one of my college roommates LOVES this series and i finally got around to starting it (with book 1, the thief) during my disaster boy summer. it's a great sequel, especially because we see a lot of the queen of eddis, who i was really excited to learn more about following the first book.
the worldbuilding in this series is great. it's inspired by ancient greece, which you see the most in its discussions of mythology and architecture. i took a class on ancient cities in college and was thrilled to see words like "megaron" and "pronaos" in the wild. the book also goes deep into the politics and military strategy in the courts of both eddis and attolia. it felt like a lot of the book's middle third was just troop movements, but i was kinda fine with that.
i'm not sure how i feel about irene's redemption arc though. i get that, like, she's girlboss and women have to be cutthroat to survive or whatever but it feels like everything just came out of nowhere. yes, gen is a lying liar who lies, king of the unreliable narrators, of course he has some big reveal he's been sitting on. but i feel like it could have been foreshadowed more, in the way that his true allegiances were foreshadowed in the first book.
the worldbuilding in this series is great. it's inspired by ancient greece, which you see the most in its discussions of mythology and architecture. i took a class on ancient cities in college and was thrilled to see words like "megaron" and "pronaos" in the wild. the book also goes deep into the politics and military strategy in the courts of both eddis and attolia. it felt like a lot of the book's middle third was just troop movements, but i was kinda fine with that.
i'm not sure how i feel about irene's redemption arc though. i get that, like, she's girlboss and women have to be cutthroat to survive or whatever but it feels like everything just came out of nowhere. yes, gen is a lying liar who lies, king of the unreliable narrators, of course he has some big reveal he's been sitting on. but i feel like it could have been foreshadowed more, in the way that his true allegiances were foreshadowed in the first book.
