I’m so confused. I love long books and slow builds, so I wasn’t put off by the reviews that said the story took a while to get going. But having listened to the full 24 hours of audiobook, I’m left wondering what the book was supposed to be about.
If this was supposed to be a story about a mother’s journey from youth to maturity, then adding multiple viewpoints and storylines definitely watered that down. If this was supposed to be an intriguing story of a clash between nations/powers, then the unanswered questions, loose threads, and lengthy inner dialogues bogged that down. If this was supposed to be an introduction to a fascinating new fictional world, then the confusing titles of classes? ethic groups? bloodlines? caused it to fall far short of what it could have been. Is this a modern tale? Or one set in ancient times? I think it tried to blend the two, but the integration was too random and ambiguous to be successful.
Conversations between characters were long without explaining much. Battle scenes were descriptive and intense without actually adding much to the story. Everything about this book just kind of…almost worked.