Reviews

The Veiled Throne by Ken Liu

shewsam's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

dthomas22's review

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3.0

One thousand pages of setup for part two, which is Speaking Bones. There are great developments here but not quite enough to justify 1000 pages. Maybe the conclusion to this series will retroactively make The Veiled Throne a bit better

krayreads's review

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4.0

my least favorite of the series so far as certain parts (especially about the longest food/restaurant contest EVER known to humanity) draggggged on forever. still beautiful writing and i enjoyed most of the journey. everything coming to fruition in the last couple chapters made the end of this book fly by. so excited for the last book but it's also bittersweet to end this amazing series!

chemistry_goodness's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

These books are so "big" at the beginning. Each of the three appeared like an unscalable mountain. The first one I kept for about a year until I finally started it. I also put the second and this one away multiple times before starting them.

There are so many characters and so many events that even just looking at the beginning with the character descriptions can be terrifying.

But don't let that stop you. Liu has a way of reminding the reader of past events and characters without doing it in an obvious "hey, this is what happened last week on...". Liu also continues to divide time expertly between different groups of people.

I'd love to write about what happens around 3/4 into the book, but I'm not even going to hint at it. A wonderful and ridiculously fun story bit!

glowycloud's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring medium-paced

5.0

haylkonig's review against another edition

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5.0

ken liu said “you’ve all been so good, here’s an episode of iron chef” and I love him for that

mesmerized as always by his prose - his attitude towards translation gives him such a unique grasp on language and its effects. love him. can’t wait for book 4

jasoneadams's review

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adventurous challenging emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

sch91086's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Eh. I know this wasn’t the strongest book of the three I’ve read. I think much could have been cut out. But the ending brought me around and Liu’s character work is still wonderful.

lbatch's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

The first 3/4 of this were maybe my favorite so far and then the pacing broke down a bit near the end for me, but this was still excellent! Excited for the conclusion.

rabydpanda's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25