All right so let’s start with the fact that this book is very much extremely not for me. So how did I end up with an arc, you ask? Well. I was suckered into thinking I would like it by reading all the rave reviews by authors I like. I kept reading that it was epic fantasy. I love epic fantasy. I even almost preordered the audiobook. I’m glad I didn’t.
But. My main issue is probably this: I cannot stand the main character. He is, as another reviewer put it, an ‘aggressively straight male.’ The humor is bawdy and crass and crude and frequently about bodily functions. I couldn’t get beyond this. It is also made abundantly clear that the story is not your typical epic fantasy, but with a heavy shading of dark grimdark horror, gore, etc. Definitely not my thing.
I also had the opportunity to review an advance copy of the audiobook. It’s read by the author and while he has a decent voice, his accent made it frequently difficult for me to understand what he was saying. It was also difficult to distinguish between characters because they all had very similar voices/accents.
I gave it up pretty quicly but I’m confident from the tone of the story and from the other reviews that the things I had problems with continue throughout.
If you like the things I had issues with and this sounds like your kind of story? Read it. You’ll probably love it. There are certainly plenty of rave reviews to that effect.
*Thanks to NetGalley, Macmillan Audio, and Macmillan-Tor Forge for providing an e-arc and audiobook arc for review.
Whimsical Dragonette 