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Sep. 25th, 2016 07:24 pmMore from Sequel Season: The Poisoned Blade is book two of Kate Elliott's Court of Fives, the first book of which has been described by the author as Little Women meets American Ninja Warrior, set in a fantasy society that borrows heavily from Hellenistic Egypt.
In the first book, the mixed-race family of Our Heroine Jes is torn completely apart by a political opportunist who wants her star general father married to his niece, and her inconvenient mother and sisters dead.
On the bright side, all this turmoil ends up giving Jes the opportunity to follow her dream and compete full-time in Hellenistic Egyptian American Ninja Warrior!
Book two features more Hellenistic Egyptian American Ninja Warrior, more sibling issues, and MUCH more complex political conspiracies. (Plus, alas to me, more love triangle.) The plot continues to be rollicking and the political conspiracies are genuinely interesting. Once again, the first half of the book took me a little while to get into before the much more action-packed second half, mostly because of the repeated instances of:
JES: I'm gonna do a thing.
INTELLIGENT ADULT: Here is a concise, reasonable explanation as to why doing the thing will blow up in your face in a way that is actively harmful to you and your family, and therefore you are forbidden to do the thing.
JES: whatever, I am totally smart and clever enough to pull off doing the thing.
JES: ...WHOOPS I DID THE THING AND IT BLEW UP IN MY FACE IN A WAY THAT WAS ACTIVELY HARMFUL TO ME AND MY FAMILY
INTELLIGENT ADULT: well who could ever have predicted that >:|
This is a very consistent character trait for Jes, but it is also maybe a reason why Jes herself is probably my least favorite of her siblings. (Admittedly, the competition for favorite is between 'the sensible history nerd who wants to be an archivist' and 'the gossipy, socially brilliant secret lesbian.' Sorry, Jes, you never stood a chance.) Also, if Jes had enough sense not to do things that are obviously bad ideas, much of the plot would not occur, and I do like the plot! But I still wish that YA did not insist so very much on first person present tense; I think this is a story that could really benefit from the option to have multiple POVs.
In the first book, the mixed-race family of Our Heroine Jes is torn completely apart by a political opportunist who wants her star general father married to his niece, and her inconvenient mother and sisters dead.
On the bright side, all this turmoil ends up giving Jes the opportunity to follow her dream and compete full-time in Hellenistic Egyptian American Ninja Warrior!
Book two features more Hellenistic Egyptian American Ninja Warrior, more sibling issues, and MUCH more complex political conspiracies. (Plus, alas to me, more love triangle.) The plot continues to be rollicking and the political conspiracies are genuinely interesting. Once again, the first half of the book took me a little while to get into before the much more action-packed second half, mostly because of the repeated instances of:
JES: I'm gonna do a thing.
INTELLIGENT ADULT: Here is a concise, reasonable explanation as to why doing the thing will blow up in your face in a way that is actively harmful to you and your family, and therefore you are forbidden to do the thing.
JES: whatever, I am totally smart and clever enough to pull off doing the thing.
JES: ...WHOOPS I DID THE THING AND IT BLEW UP IN MY FACE IN A WAY THAT WAS ACTIVELY HARMFUL TO ME AND MY FAMILY
INTELLIGENT ADULT: well who could ever have predicted that >:|
This is a very consistent character trait for Jes, but it is also maybe a reason why Jes herself is probably my least favorite of her siblings. (Admittedly, the competition for favorite is between 'the sensible history nerd who wants to be an archivist' and 'the gossipy, socially brilliant secret lesbian.' Sorry, Jes, you never stood a chance.) Also, if Jes had enough sense not to do things that are obviously bad ideas, much of the plot would not occur, and I do like the plot! But I still wish that YA did not insist so very much on first person present tense; I think this is a story that could really benefit from the option to have multiple POVs.
