Reviews and Comments

Unfortunately, this just wasn't good.

The story meandered to fill time; it tempted me with ogre lore only to conclude that nope, this entire species of thinking speaking people is irredeemably evil except this one girl who isn't even really an ogre in the first place; it concludes with the message that even if you think you don't want to get married you really do; and in shoving in backstory for characters from Ella Enchanted, it made the world seem small.

The appearance of Peter, Ella's father, early in the book was fine. It's the latter half that annoys me. Peter proposes to Eleanor, Lucinda shows up and Mandy urges Eleanor to accept the proposal lest she get cursed, and they're then given one of Lucinda's many dubious blessings. After which Peter drops the facade of loving Eleanor and goes all scheming villain in her presence. Boring tbh? Why did Ella's jerkass dad need to be even more of a one-dimensional villain? Why wouldn't Mandy have told Ella the circumstances of the proposal -- instead telling her that Eleanor always loved Peter? Who asked for this? In the end everyone finds out Peter's a scumbag but he gets off scot-free because we can't change the timeline (if we could, Evie and Eleanor might as well have gotten together).

Speaking of Evie, what even is the moral of her story? Don't turn down the boy you're not in love with, because actually yes you are? It's just so bad. I hate it.

Rather bummed out that Egan's physics writeup on his site about this book is focused on how gravity works, which I was perfectly willing to take at face value; what I'm more interested in is the geography of the lands beyond the hoops. I think I have an okay idea in my head of how they work, but I'm not 100% sure. And like specifically, I want to know what's through the other side of the hoops at the nubs. More nubs? More void? Do you always have to go that far out to find a nub, or are there some that are a lot closer to Jierra? which I'm imagining as the center of this web of lands.

Also was rather annoyed by-- there's an implication that one character was a trans man, which fascinated me because I wasn't expecting that, and what does it say about the world he lives in? But before that could get followed up, or confirmed or denied, or even addressed by the character in question himself, both he and the character who made the implication die off-page. I'm not saying "don't kill queer characters", but for one thing, I'm also fascinated by the fact that Del was just like "oh, okay", her only concern being why he would obfuscate his past achievements; is transness widely accepted in this world, or is that a quirk of Del's? WE'LL NEVER KNOW.

The book also ends rather abruptly, when I wanted to see more of the aftermath, but I guess that just wasn't in the cards.