orpheus
Review coming soon but all I can say is that Kuang got a fan and a future revolutionary out of me. From the ending, I'm guessing there's a sequel and I do so hope we get one. This is my book of the year by far, and I just have so many thoughts as a POC and my own role in a still colonialist and racist world.
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★★★★★ stars. Need time to compile my thoughts properly but this was one of my most anticipated books of the year and it delivered everything I wanted from it. I think everyone was forced to read Hamlet during their middle, and often times high school as well, careers and, as someone who enjoyed Hamlet (along with Macbeth), this offered a more human element to the play and of course I will forever be a Laertes fangirl after this.
I will say that I the few vices the book itself has is that one it's a bit too short. I hesitated finishing the last two chapters because I didn't want it to end and the other is that i wanted some more Ophelia and Hamlet scenes. Great novel.
I am trying to put my thoughts together in regards to this book and all I can think of is that, like the characters, the grief is far too much to bear. I had an enjoyable time with this novel. Easily in the top 5 of what I've read all year but it is an emotional journey I was not ready for.
It took me at least a few days to pick it back up to read part 5 and finish and half was that so much was happening at once and that I just did not want to leave the world given to me. M. L. Rio wrote a transcendent novel and I look forward to the next book she releases in the future.
A quick read with one of the most relatable protagonists I've read about, sans murder of course. I have brothers that are autistic and strangers to society in their own way so it hit a bit close to home, especially the trial knowing that even now those with Asperger's/autism and the like eccentricities are used against them. “I felt the urge to reassure him that I was like everybody else, just like everybody else.”
I first heard of this book off of Reddit in an off thread on R/Fantasy. It claimed it was remnant of Dune, I'm here to rebuke that cause the dad in Dune is WAY better than the dad here and Hadrian is a much more realized protagonist especially with how he changes over the extent of the novel. I was expecting the gladiator part to go for more time but it ended at a good spot.
The only weakness I can name is the excavation parts but it doesn't last for long and it speeds up at a break neck pace almost Sanderson like. Great novel, especially since the author Mr. Ruocchio was only 21 when he wrote it. I'm not even into science fiction as much as fantasy but it's encouraged me to give all the sci fi on my to read shelf another try.
