Review - "City of Saints and Thieves"

City of Saints and Thieves
by Natalie C. Anderson
rating: ☆☆
published: 6th July 2017
spoilers? nope

Goodreads

Galley provided by publisher

City of Saints and Thieves was one of my anticipated reads for this year. From the synopsis, the book sounded as though it had a lot of potential to be amazing. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy it as much as I would have liked.

Most of the problems I had stemmed from the fact that the author of this book is white, and writing about Kenyan and Congolese characters. I realise that she has worked with Congolese refugees in Kenya and everything, and that's where some of the background for this comes from, but it's very very obviously written by a white author. And because that's how it felt, I had trouble actually getting into this book, and couldn't really connect with any of the characters.

I also had issues with the actual plot. It's supposed to be a murder mystery kind of thing, but if we're honest, there's actually no real investigating done by the main characters. It's all sort of reading through police reports and mumbling about how they need to do x and y, and then they go to the tech whiz and he gets it for them in a flash. Then the reveal comes out of nowhere. They don't even get close to finding out who might be behind it. They have no idea, but the bad guy then reveals his hand by kidnapping them even though they don't know who he is until that point. For this to be an effective mystery, you have to at least have them uncovering something that points towards the culprit. Otherwise it feels like the author's just gone and added it in as an afterthought.

The rest of what annoyed me was mostly just the usual YA stereotypes - of course the main character is incredibly pretty, it's just not going to work as a book if she isn't, and of course the gay character is camp as hell just so he can be slight comic relief, and of courseshe's not like other girls (she actually said this. My eyes near on rolled out my skull). So yeah. It was disappointing to say the least.

Review - "Raven Stratagem"

Raven Stratagem, The Machineries of Empire #2
by Yoon Ha Lee
rating: ☆☆☆☆
published: 13th June 2017
spoilers? small ones

Goodreads

“No,” Cheris said. “The war never ends.”

Galley provided by publisher

I'll be the first to admit that for most of the first book, I wasn't enjoying this series. Then the last 40 pages happened and suddenly everything ramped up a notch. So, going into this book, I was so much more excited.

Raven Stratagem picks up where Ninefox Gambit left off, except from a different point of view. Instead of being from the point of view of Cheris, we see everything through the eyes of a new Kel swarm - specifically Khiruev and Brezan, interspersed with the points of view of the Shuos hexarch, and one or two others along the way. While it was nice to see the old characters from a new angle, I did miss Cheris' voice as a narrator.

In this book, everything is higher stakes. Cheris (once you read it you'll understand why that part is kind of spoilerish) was not intended to survive the destruction of the Kel fleet in the first book, and as a result is persona non grata to Kel Command. At the same time, the Hafn are attempting to invade, and Khiruev's Kel swarm is the only one within distance of the Hafn fleet.

As with Ninefox Gambit, I found this a slow read. The difference between the two books was that I didn't get exasperated by the slowness of this one, partly because I knew what to expect in terms of writing style, and partly because the end of the first book had me hooked into this universe.

Perhaps I'm being stingy about my 5-star ratings all of a sudden because, while this book was very good, it didn't quite merit one of those from me. I did love the characters, and certain scenes had me so excited, but there was just something missing (maybe how good I felt the action scenes were? I'm not sure). But that doesn't detract from how desperately I'm needing book three now.