godelewa's reviews
284 reviews

I read this at a time I needed a bit escapism and it delivered. It had been a long time that I visited Alagaesia, and never before in English, but surprisingly it soon felt comfortable.

I picked this up on a trip to the US and was disturbed by two things.
Firstly, it is simply the most disturbing and violent book content wise that I read in a long time.
Secondly, there is a lot of Spanish in this book and I get that many people in the US speak at least some Spanish, but none of the six languages that I speak is Spanish. I managed, guessing most of it with reference to my French, but I would only recommend this book to people who speak English and Spanish. 
So, both of these disturbing things are not negatives, just things a reader should be aware of.

I saw the ending coming, hoped it wouldn't, and was still shocked when it happened. I works as a grim metaphor the inescapable marks of poverty. 

I had high hopes for this book. I generally like spy thrillers, the premise sounded interesting and I was interested in seeing an Indian perspective to it.
Sadly, this is just written really badly. No aspect of the book is good. The writing style, the characters ... everything is a terrible conglomeration of clichés. How is it even possible for such a short book to be this boring?

Not as great as The Round House, but given that The Round House is one of my absolute favourite books that would have been a miracle.

I kind of had an unexpected epiphany reading this book. I have no connection at all to Native Americans, but LaRose's exploration of boarding school trauma helped me understand relatives who were forced into sporting schools under communism (not that I mean to compare it).

Very interesting experiment. 
I wrote in my notes that I think Twyla is

black

and Roberta is

white

, but I remember being unsure.