Beth’s Reviews > King's Dragon > Status Update

Antonia's OP.

This book is trying to slip out of my grasp, and I'm not going to let it--for reasons I may or may not get into later. As a friend reminded me, "even if you read only three pages of x book per day, you'll finish it eventually." Look forward to my review in September?

Alain's section here has been a trudge. Kings and generals stuff (zzz), another couple pages of noble/royal family trees (zzz). More long scenes with powerful people doing horrible things. I mean, I'm not expecting the fizzy levity of the Alexis Hall book I'm listening to from this (heh), but the level of misery porn in this book is a smidge too high for me.

After a very slightly rocky patch, I'm back into this one. I appreciate the acknowledgment that someone doesn't recover from trauma/abuse immediately after they've gotten away from their bad situation. The character also has flashbacks when [spoiler] is mentioned in benign conversation, which is also in keeping with what I understand about PTSD.

Starting part II after a month's break. An infodump full of territories, nobles, family trees... disorienting, boring, redolent of the rote history courses I took in jr. high. Even with a fantasy map at the front of the book, and some character interactions to lend some context, there's no chance I'm going to remember all this stuff.

I've finished part I and there are a couple of other things I want to read in the shorter term, so I'll take a brief break from this. Part I did end at a place that encourages further reading, with both point of views in a situation of flux or change.

I ended up skipping ahead a little bit to see how things went for one of the characters, because a possibly indefinite stasis was siphoning my interest in continuing. (There's only so much misery porn I can take.)

I've certainly read fantasy that had unpleasant or wicked crypto-Catholic clergy. This one wins the blue ribbon for leading a human sacrifice ritual...

There's a lot of setup going on but it feels rather static and exposition-heavy, and I'm getting bogged down (and being a slow reader isn't helping matters, either). A review or two said that things pick up in Part II, so I'll be patient.