WardenRed reviewed Vows of Empire by Emily Skrutskie
None
4 stars
It wasn’t pretty, but it got the job done.
Whew. Finally, I am done with this series!
It was really a weird experience throughout: this book, but also the entire trilogy, because I kept having these huge gaps between reading each installments and debating whether I maybe want to unhaul the rest of the series altogether. But something still kept pulling me into continuing. Probably the part where if someone just described the main plot points and the character archetypes and such to me, I would always say, "Yes, yes please, this story is exactly up my alley," but the actual execution of all these concepts just kept making me so mad throughout.
This particular book sat better with me than the previous two, most likely because of the POV changes that made for some excitement. Also, because there was so much Wen and she turned out to be basically …
It wasn’t pretty, but it got the job done.
Whew. Finally, I am done with this series!
It was really a weird experience throughout: this book, but also the entire trilogy, because I kept having these huge gaps between reading each installments and debating whether I maybe want to unhaul the rest of the series altogether. But something still kept pulling me into continuing. Probably the part where if someone just described the main plot points and the character archetypes and such to me, I would always say, "Yes, yes please, this story is exactly up my alley," but the actual execution of all these concepts just kept making me so mad throughout.
This particular book sat better with me than the previous two, most likely because of the POV changes that made for some excitement. Also, because there was so much Wen and she turned out to be basically the real protagonist of the story, just like I hoped/expected. I wish I could have read this entire tale in her POV, it would have been so much more interesting. I'm very happy with her storyline and outcome, and the twists and turns were objectively fun. It's just that I once again was supremely frustrated by how they were handled. Oh, cool, Gal and Ettian were unreliable narrators all along! Then why, in their literal first person POVs, did they outright lie to themselves all the time? Why did I spend so much time reading about them angsting, having emotions and inner monologues about things they knew were not true? That's not even really an unreliable narrator, that's... I don't even know. A deluded narrator, maybe? A narrator who doesn't know what's going on in his life? A narrator who's way too good at compartmentalizing and needs urgent help? If you're going to write it that way, at least set the story in a universe where both of their thoughts and feelings are constantly monitored by some telepaths, then I'll buy it and praise them for being so smart (and still want them to get urgent mental health help after the entire ordeal, but genuinely).
Just like in the first book, the twists, while fun, were both visible from the get-go (if I took a kind of bird's eyes view and looked at the events and plot points, not how they were presented) and came completely out of the left field (if I let myself get immersed into the characters' experiences). Just like in the first two books, I wish the narrative did a better job at acknowledging Gal and Ettian as borderline villain protagonists. Honestly, I could go on and on about all the numerous discrepancies between what the book said and how it said it. But I do acknowledge there was a lot of fun stuff here. It's just that how it was handled/presented never sat well with me, sadly.
