Sean
I’ve never read a book where so little goes right for its characters. Within the first part, they’d all taken an emotional and physical beating. Most had both. In a lot of books, that would be followed by some sort of recovery. Not here. Robin Hobb sees those characters laying on the deck and just keeps hitting them with haymakers. There were a couple instances where I thought things were looking up for a character, but I should have known better because every single time they got knocked right back to where they were, or worse. While that is my main takeaway, it’s not what brings this rating down. I felt that Hobb got caught up trying to tell too many stories at once, and they all suffered for it. This is completely different from the farseer trilogy which I complained needed more characters, but it modulated too far the other way. I really wish I could have spent more time with Althea and kennit as those two characters had exclusively enjoyable chapters, but there wasn’t enough time devoted to them. All that being said, I feel the three star rating I gave is slightly harsh and doesn’t entirely reflect my reading experience. There was enough there that I’m certainly going to continue at some point, despite the low rating.
I’ve never read a book where so little goes right for its characters. Within the first part, they’d all taken an emotional and physical beating. Most had both. In a lot of books, that would be followed by some sort of recovery. Not here. Robin Hobb sees those characters laying on the deck and just keeps hitting them with haymakers. There were a couple instances where I thought things were looking up for a character, but I should have known better because every single time they got knocked right back to where they were, or worse. While that is my main takeaway, it’s not what brings this rating down. I felt that Hobb got caught up trying to tell too many stories at once, and they all suffered for it. This is completely different from the farseer trilogy which I complained needed more characters, but it modulated too far the other way. I really wish I could have spent more time with Althea and kennit as those two characters had exclusively enjoyable chapters, but there wasn’t enough time devoted to them. All that being said, I feel the three star rating I gave is slightly harsh and doesn’t entirely reflect my reading experience. There was enough there that I’m certainly going to continue at some point, despite the low rating.
Kat Hill is a bad influence…she made me want to drop everything and go explore the network of bothies all around Scotland. This book at its core is a cozy, personal story about the charms of bothers and the wilderness, as well as how the huts helped the author through some hard times. But more than that, there are deeper themes of contending with change when you maybe aren’t ready for those changes to occur. Each chapter focuses on a different bothy, what makes them unique, the authors personal story of visiting them, and the surrounding areas history, but then uses the bothy as a way to explore important topics in the modern world.
Kat Hill is a bad influence…she made me want to drop everything and go explore the network of bothies all around Scotland. This book at its core is a cozy, personal story about the charms of bothers and the wilderness, as well as how the huts helped the author through some hard times. But more than that, there are deeper themes of contending with change when you maybe aren’t ready for those changes to occur. Each chapter focuses on a different bothy, what makes them unique, the authors personal story of visiting them, and the surrounding areas history, but then uses the bothy as a way to explore important topics in the modern world.
