Josh

Quite an enjoyable book although not always the easiest to read. It can be violent, bleak, and quite dark at times although not without purpose. I wanted to point out something I appreciated from the start though, so on a bit of a tangent!

I was hooked to this book almost immediately and the reason for this is how it displays mandatory training. It reminds me a lot of basic training. Exaggerated and embellished of course, but if someone had told me Hurley had been in the military I wouldn't have batted an eye. What do I mean? Small things, for example, the mantra's about killing they yell out during bayonet training are very similar to some of the same things you will say in boot camp. The Drill Sergeant will yell things like “What makes the grass grow green” the response of course “blood, blood, bright red blood”. “Who are we?” “The Quick.” “Who are they?” “The dead”. The dead being figurative here as this was actually before Iraq or Afghanistan, but I digress. 

She even writes about that burning desire to be praised and recognized by the very people yelling at you and making you do push up's. There's enough element of truth to what Dietz is saying and experiencing during said training, that I instantly understand and have an immediate connection with the character.

Moving on though, overall I quite enjoyed the journey. I like the theme's it brings up about war, power, governance, and the power of the people. None of this is new and you can find many stories like this out there, but not every book needs to re-invent the wheel. Sometimes it's enough to add something to existing theme's and execute on it well and that's what we have here.

My biggest complaints I suppose is outside Dietz I don't have any attachments to any characters. Some people die...it's war obviously...but I don't really feel much outside of how it effects Dietz, because I don't ever feel like they're really that important. The other complaint and the main one is that the ending is kind of...well for lack of the better word lame. I would certainly have liked something a bit different in that regard, but while cliche, sometimes it is true that it's the journey and not the destination. Last bit will be in a spoiler even though not integral to the story it's something I certainly missed.

When I was reading this book I thought Dietz was male. It's never stated that they were male, they have relationships with both sexes through the story, so it begs the question why I thought that. Could write a paper on that likely, but I appreciate that the book caused that kind of reflection without it feeling unnatural or shoehorned in.

King's talent for writing everyday life of a small town and populating it with interesting characters is on full display here. Granted there are times he goes into the small details that may not appeal to everyone, but for me as a non-visual reader he paints a picture that even I can see.

The atmosphere he builds while slowly increasing the tension is a great journey, which I thoroughly enjoyed. There were some elements I didn't think were particularly strong such as the romance Ben has and I thought there were a tad too many ‘random' characters. Overall though it's a great “modern” take on the vampire mythos.

A compelling and thrilling read, which I enjoyed immensely. My only complaint with it would be that there were times when this book felt very slow as it includes a lot of mundane details that are quite dry to read. Sometimes this was purposeful, where as others it felt like it could have been left out with no real loss. None the less I look forward to continuing on with the characters as they solve their next mystery in book 2.

Definitely mind the trigger warning though if it's something you're considering reading. 

A mark of a great author is the ability to take a story you're familiar with and tell it in a way that makes you feel something new. Very well done.

I greatly enjoyed The Poppy War and I legitimately thought this series had the potential to go down as one of my all time favourites. It still may, but after reading the second entry I'm not quite so convinced anymore.

I did not greatly enjoy approximately the first two thirds of this book. It feels like the character's, Rin in particular, regressed in development. While this can make sense given her experiences and the circumstances her character goes through there's a balance to walk there between how long a character wallows and how much time it takes before them to start developing again. I don't think that line is walked particularly well here and part of this is imo because of the significantly slower pacing. 

That being said the last third or so of the book is absolutely wonderful with a very satisfying concluding couple of chapters that completely changed my overall opinion of the novel. Given I'd lean towards 2 out of 5 for the first and second third and 5 out of 5 for the last third, 3 stars overall feels right.