Back of the book
Betrayed and left for dead...
Rin has returned to her roots, to the southern provinces and the village that is her home. Her new allies are sly, but Rin knows that true power lies with the millions of common people who thirst for vengeance and revere her as a goddess.
Backed by the masses and her Southern Army, Rin will use every weapon to defeat the Dragon Republic and the colonizing Hesperians. But, as her power and influence grows, will she be able to resist the voice of the Phoenix, urging her to burn the world and everything in it?
My thoughts
Rin is a horrible person.
At the start of the trilogy I was rooting for her. That feeling ended by the first book and I stayed ambivalent but more and more frustrated with her in the second. I didn't like her at all in this novel. It's much harder to read about a main character you don't like. Her logic deteriorated until she was no longer fighting for a reason but just starting drama for the chaos of it all.
Again, I felt the number of tense battle scenes made each one lose their climatic value. For all the war going on, the casualties of key people felt a minimum. Even when the Cike were killed off in the previous book, they had started to be written out of the story anyway. In the beginning of the trilogy the horrors of war were personal close to Rin and it humanised the devastation. This time round masses of people we don't care about are dying for this war but that are not respected or humanised. This is more a reflection of Rin's attitude but I hated it.
These books reinforce for me that I don't like reading about war. I will not impulse buy another book with 'war' in the title, no matter the author.
(The following segment I wrote in response to reading other reviews of the trilogy to help me digest what I just read).
Apparently the genre of this trilogy is 'grimdark', and my first impression is I do not like this genre! I am slightly curious to read another book of grimdark genre to decide if it is the genre or this specific trilogy I don't like, but probably not curious enough to gamble on another sub-par reading experience. Life is too short to read bad books!
I like to get deeply involved in books that I read. This trilogy was too dark for me to immerse myself into. So I either immersed myself and didn't enjoy the read because the content is horrific, or I stepped back and didn't enjoy the experience because I wasn't 'lost in it'. This is not a good book to lose yourself into, instead it is good for thought-provoking and moral questioning.
I saw Rin described as the ultimate anti-hero, which makes a lot of sense. "If you can't make your character likeable, make them interesting." Rin started a little bit likeable, and was still interesting when I though she was going mad, but the seal mostly ruined the interesting aspect for me. By the end of the trilogy she was neither to me. Another sentiment that resonated with me was that Rin was never a super nice person, so her descent into being a bad person was not a long way to fall, shortening her evil character arc.
To conclude this experience, I respect that these were not bad books, rather a genre I did not enjoy with challenging topics I don't like to think about. I am used to a good guys versus bad guys story and it is important to blur the lines but this story was too messy for me. Time to return to genres I know and trust and stop breaking my brain with morbidity.
TL:DR
Research genre 'grimdark' before reading, to help you decide if it's right for you. Terrible circumstances, terrible choices and competing ways to be horrible. At least most of the bad guys are dead by the end.
YOU ARE READING
Spoilery Book Reviews
No FicciónBook reviews written by me. All reviews will contain spoilers. Some books are ones I have read millions of times and are my well known favourites. Some books are really random and bizarre picks for me that were complete surprises.
