2/5 stars. Will not be continuing with the series. I listened to it pretty fast, faster than other books I like more, but my motivation for that was really just to be done with it. “Only this long left” was my thinking on it. I wanted to finish to start another.

For most of the book I didn’t care about a single character. I didn’t like Darrow much. He seemed to always have the answer and could be exactly what the situation called for. I also found the idea of the story intriguing, but did not get invested in it at all. And I think both are symptoms of the writing style.

He told us everything. I think the most common writing advice out there is “show don’t tell.” He did the exact opposite. (You could argue the same about LotR and The Once and Future King, but those feel like a guy sitting around a fire telling you a story he knows, this feels like watching a story through a character’s eyes and he’s telling you how you should interpret everything and feel about it.) Another common piece of advice is “no info dumps, especially in your first chapter.” The first several chapters were one huge info dump. He felt the need to tell us every single thing about the world and characters and their relationships before the story even started. I got so bored in those early chapters. And it didn’t get much better, because, while the story started moving, it still felt kinda like an info-dump because he simply told us everything. Even in the rare time that he did show something, he then immediately stated it. He never left anything implied. Way too many ‘am’s and “beacause’s and ‘is’s. “I feel this” “I am this” “he feels this” “I think this” “I am right”. He force-feeds us everything. He tells you how to feel about the characters, which just makes me feel nothing at all. And he used a lot of similes and statements I think were intended to be literary and smart but just sounded ridiculous to me.

Some specific (non-spoilery) examples:

There was a character at one point that he apparently formed a connection with and she gave him something and he like asked her master to be nice or something in what I think was supposed to be a touching scene. I don’t even remember her name, but I just thought “wait… Have we even heard this girl talk before? But we’re supposed to care about her and their relationship?”

“They are afraid of us.”
“I am angry.”
“I want to punch him.”
All super easy to show through actions and descriptions. And every other sentence was like that.

I didn’t write down the similes I cringed at, but there were a lot.

In one listening session (the last one) I heard the following:
“She smells like smoke and hunger.”
“She tastes like she smells, like smoke and hunger.”
“It smells like earth and siege.”
“He reeks of power like pinks reek of perfume.”
“His pride reeks.” (The same guy who, a few sentences before, reeked of power)
Who can tell me what hunger, siege, power and pride smell like and why he was so obsessed with smells?

Overall, an interesting story, but most (not all) of the characters were bland. And the writing style hurt to listen to. And that made both the characters and story that much more bland. Maybe I’m just too old or something. I won’t tell you not to read it, but I have a long list of books I would recommend first.