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lightreadsReturn of the Thief
4/5. Conclusion to this long-running (in years, not pages) YA fantasy about the thief turned king.
I went on a journey with this one. I started out with oh come on, a completely new narrator again? and then very rapidly pivoted to oh, keep being amazing, sweetie, and from ugh, so she's keeping the main players off center stage for yet another book, come on to yeah . . . actually . . . Gen and Irene are exhausting, if we had to spend this whole book up close with them yelling at each other and having sex, I'd have to put it down every other page.
Anyway, I'm not actually sure this is terribly good as the end of a series. There are a lot of things solved by divine power (an actual lightning bolt!) that seemed to me to transgress some of the narrative rules of this universe, which was previously focused more satisfyingly on divine power operating painfully through human effort. I liked it better when all the gods did was tell Gen to stop whining. Still funny. But oh, this universe. Of course its final tale should be told by a young man with multiple severe disabilities. Of course. Absolutely no one else would do. I will miss them all, and what good friends they made (or, in several cases, more, even the offscreen queers arrrrrgh).
Content notes: References to the murder of disabled children, war, torture with few details, miscarriage and fears of maternal mortality.
4/5. Conclusion to this long-running (in years, not pages) YA fantasy about the thief turned king.
I went on a journey with this one. I started out with oh come on, a completely new narrator again? and then very rapidly pivoted to oh, keep being amazing, sweetie, and from ugh, so she's keeping the main players off center stage for yet another book, come on to yeah . . . actually . . . Gen and Irene are exhausting, if we had to spend this whole book up close with them yelling at each other and having sex, I'd have to put it down every other page.
Anyway, I'm not actually sure this is terribly good as the end of a series. There are a lot of things solved by divine power (an actual lightning bolt!) that seemed to me to transgress some of the narrative rules of this universe, which was previously focused more satisfyingly on divine power operating painfully through human effort. I liked it better when all the gods did was tell Gen to stop whining. Still funny. But oh, this universe. Of course its final tale should be told by a young man with multiple severe disabilities. Of course. Absolutely no one else would do. I will miss them all, and what good friends they made (or, in several cases, more, even the offscreen queers arrrrrgh).
Content notes: References to the murder of disabled children, war, torture with few details, miscarriage and fears of maternal mortality.