PotsandPlots

Seedling Reviews are my shorter overview of books. Written to try to keep up with the pile.

Growing Information:

Plant With: Urban Fantasy, Angels, Paris

Grows Into: A tedious slog through supernatural politics

Rating: Garage Flowers 🌻(Check here for rating information.)

The Review:

I was so disappointed by this book. It’s been on my radar for a long time, and crossed it again with a recent US rerelease.

I recently went on holiday to Paris and thought this would be a fun reading accompaniment. I was wrong.

The book is set in Paris after a fall. A supernatural war has ravaged the city. “The Fallen” and humans live side by side in its ruins. Great houses still vie for power, with politics and magic playing an important role in how the city is governed.

I wanted to enjoy this book so much. It felt like it should tick so many boxes for me, but I found it flat. I didn’t remotely get a sense of Paris. I found all the characters unlikable, and something about the writing style made it difficult for me to follow what was going on. Despite making it all the way through the book, I found I barely cared what happened to anybody, pretty much at any point in the story.

This is a popular book, so perhaps this phenomenon is peculiar to me. I do have previous history with this sort of reaction. The Tyrant Philosphers series by Adrian Tchaikovsky provokes similar feelings and, again, these are very popular books.

I found both dry, uncompelling and difficult to penetrate what was going on. I have no idea why certain books do this, but sometimes, for whatever reason, they just don’t gel.

We can’t all like the same thing, and sometimes books just don’t work for a specific reader. I would never say, “don’t read this book,” you’ll bring your own personal taste to the reading experience. I, however, will not be progressing with the series.