This book was an all-round disappointment. The book was slow- despite me complaining about the plodding pace in the other two books, this one still did not pick up the tempo for huge amounts of this tome. Plus the character development came way, way too late in the day. And lastly the idea that I had been waiting 2 books to bear fruit, ended up leaving me with what felt like two overripe bananas.
(Spoiler- that’s what I’m giving this book)
I have been going on since I read the first book that this was an ambitious series that had buckets of potential… Unfortunately that potential was never really reached. As it’s on the subject of religion and gods it could have been so much more philosophical… but not only did it fail in this regard- the philosophy behind it didn’t work!
For one thing- everyone in the book was too obedient. I did not get her loyalty to the gods- or anyone else’s for that matter. No one ever doubted the gods or questioned their tyrannical actions. I mean, it took the main character until page 534 to realise they wanted her dead- even though they’d already tried to kill her!! From a purely logical perspective, when you can see a ruler or god, it humanises them enough that you would see their flaws and at least question them. But no… in this universe, they were all obedient drones.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, (*massive spoiler warning*) after they overthrow these worthless gods- who turn out to have been humans originally- the epilogue implies that some conniving sods will try to find a replacement for them… This was particularly irksome because it implied that everyone would just believe in gods for the sake of it. The moral was revealed at the end of the story: anyone can be indoctrinated with a lie and people like to be controlled by religion. All of these things I can imagine would (rightly) piss off my religious friends.
On top of that they all just have really weird and unhealthy relationships with the gods- like they’re lover/father figures- it’s just odd. I don’t feel like the author really gets religion- unfortunately all I have gathered about the author’s biography is that she’s irreligious- but a lot the philosophy behind this was weak. It was a mixture of poorly thought out ideas and lazy religion bashing.
There were other minor things that irritated me about this book- including other things the protagonist was too dim-witted to figure out- but if I sat here listing them we’d be here all week! So as aforementioned: here are two mouldy bananas to throw at the author…
So have you read this book? Did you like it? And what series disappointed you with its ending? Let me know in the comments!