#like i kiiiiiind of want to reread it knowing what to expect but also. i dont want to reread it at all.

[asexualbookbird]

okay I've chewed on it a bit! So here's a messy Not Review of An Unspoken Name!

I did not hate it! the end no okay some things i didnt like

-it felt disjointed

i was most jarred by the beginning of part two, when we meet new people and it takes a bit for anyone we know to how up. like i just started caring about Csorwe and Sethannai, and now? it's over? we get new people????

-related: the timeline felt Off

or maybe the pacing? I was thinking about it and one of my complaints about A Memory Called Empire was the timeline was pretty short! Manit gets a new job, has the worst week of her life, and goes home. Wild. Here it's more spread out and supposedly that should work better for me since I generally complain about short timelines but i dont know! Something felt off to me! Most notable was the first torture scene. I'm not going to sit here and say give me 50 pages of in depth torture because I'm not about that, but afterwards Csorwe mentioned injuries and im like where'd they come from?? from the general?? and yeah i figured it out but maybe a bit more detail on the torture?

also in that scene, beforehand shes in the tunnels and the next shes in the generals room and it felt like it was immediately after but i guess some time passed? maybe transitions is what im complaining about here.

-sethannai what are you doing lol

no seriously what. is his goal. the box, yeah, but is it really? maybe it's explored more in the second book but his reasons felt flat to me! i dont hate him as a character (deffo hate him as a person lololol) but id have liked to see more of him? he felt like a background character tbh

i didnt like this but also didnt not like it but

-Plot™️

okay. look. I know and understand and even enjoy that different plot structures exist. I recognise that the plot structure i am most familiar with and have come to expect from novels is a very euro centric structure and that there are more ways to tell a story. i really think this is a synopsis problem and a me problem rather than a book problem. I went in expecting a story About Csorwe, but I don't think she's the main character here! Shuthmili is the main character! And it's wild because we don't meet her until part two! And again, different plot structures different ways to tell stories i get it, and I think had I known that going it my feelings would be different (so a Me problem). The synopsis talks about Csorwe and Sethannai, so I expected it to be All About Them. Twas not.

Things I liked!!

-THE WORLD(S)

i find it so fascinating that this is basically scifi space travel but make it fantasy. I love the different worlds i love that it doesnt feel like scifi with aliens and space and starships. (nothing wrong with that obvi but it's not my preferred reading tbh!) i thought that was done very well and wonder if there are any other books that do that because i want it explored more (which is the only reason im considering book two).

-M A G I C

WHAT A SYSTEM!!!!!!!! Again, interested in Shuthmili and her god(s), in the....Quinqureat? listening to the aduio did me no favor (quincury). I want more of that. I want to know more about all this magic how its used how its cast how it hurts the user. And honestly put this in the Did Not Like section because gotdang give me more detailed fights please. Sword fights were pretty well done (though could have been more)(thats a me problem)(i could always use more sword fights)m but I felt the magic fights were lack luster. I want more of them. This system is so cool, and it was underused!

-The Main Three

Csorwe, Shuthmili, Tal. Awful disasters, I love them so. Tal grew on me, unfortunately. Csorwe needs a hug. Shuthmili needs to frolic. They were done well, they had good arcs (though i do think Shuthmili's mind was changed a little too fast. It takes more than a cute girl to undo a lifetime of brainwashing.)

other notes are I kind of wish there was more time in the manor, simply because the friend Csorwe met was really interesting and I wanted more of her than a line later that said oh yeah and she got all she wanted and lived happily ever after :) Oranna was a good antagonist, though again. Was there really a central antagonist? Different structures yeah I know.

Overall it was Fine! I didn't outright hate anything! I'm not mad I read it! The narrator was very pleasant, did wonderful voices (though I'm more neutral on Shuthmili's voice lol) Don't really care to read the sequel, but not opposed to it.

#bookbird babbles #ezra reads the unspoken name #cannot stress enough how much i did not hate this #i feel like i want to be Nice because under different circumstances my feelings might be different lol #like i kiiiiiind of want to reread it knowing what to expect but also. i dont want to reread it at all.