The Palace Job

15% DNF. My luck with books is not brilliant this year, it seems. At least I'm willing to try stuff, I guess. But this... is genuinely impossible to read to me. Some time ago I tried [b:The Bone Season 17199504 The Bone Season (The Bone Season, #1) Samantha Shannon https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1421412990s/17199504.jpg 19248070] and said it was incredibly graceless when it came to starting you out and building up the world and yeah, that is true. It was a clunky think. This one, though... OH GOD. In not even 60 Kindle pages (smallest font) we had so many characters that I could not follow anything. When you maaaybe started to be able to imagine them the story skipped to a whole new group of people. The most you could get was a very basic, very superficial little hazy idea of something there and then you were somewhere else. Priests, prisoners, officials, ogres, all kinds of random people doing their random things. Mentions of gods, wars, conflicts, countries. A heist that we don't know about, while a bunch of people are in different ranks, relating to each other's history in different ways. I understand worldbuilding ain't easy, but I prefer if it doesn't steamroll me until my brain is a huge bowl of porridge. The names don't have any rhyme or reason, which adds another layer of hardship to me being able to know what is going on. Theeeeen for some reason we even have situations where two conversations are going on at the same time. Like one political, one about a heist. When you can't even keep the characters straight, I have no idea how I would be able to follow two conversations of new information with these impossible to follow characters. Then there is my personal little issue with the protagonist. Why is that so many authors think establishing a “strong female character” is best done through making her beat up a man you assume is much stronger than her? It's just a tired trope, boring, lacking any originality. If it could be anything other than “and then she beat up a soldier/knight/gangster and you knew she must be cool”, I would be so happy. So there it is. This book confused me with how it was even published. I'm pretty sure it does get better, but the beginning of the book to me was not enjoyable at all. I tried to push myself, I really did and it did not work. It was more of an uphill battle than an enjoyable reading experience that pulled me in. Sorry about not giving it a real chance. I couldn't make myself. Have a nice day and wear a name tag, please!!!

A very fun romp.
This book was quick and entertaining, which was exactly what I needed to end the year. It is a very visual book and builds a movie in one's mind, perfect audio book material.

ReRead May & June 2021

The time it took me to reread this book is not related to how much I was enjoying it - because, honestly, I liked it the same amount as I did the first time.

This is a fun heist read that puts me in mind of Leverage in a fantasy setting. Likable, if not focused on, characters, wonderful banter and just over all such fun!