To Light a Candle

The pacing falters a little bit from the first book, some things happen without as much of a satisfying explanation for how and why. But, with how much is in it I suppose it makes sense. Develops the characters and the world very well, and manages to fall into the niche of recognizable fantasy tropes without feeling too familiar, repetitive, or formulaic. A comfortable world to fall into for a while.

I enjoyed much of this book but the middle third of it falls into this really unsettling indoctrinating justification of genocide. Fantasy often walks a fine line with its many races and the wars between them but this one gets pretty brutal and doesn't even examine that, basically at all. It's taken as a given that the actual ethnic cleansing of a race of “tainted” elves from the lands is just and necessary, and it's gross. It's even weirder in a book that is otherwise so centered on kind of hippie principles—it even features the line “there's no such thing as implied consent”, which, great! But that middle section ... oof. I'm not sure I want to pick up the final book.