#glitzandshadows

Oh my god

Ruthless Gods by Emily A. Duncan

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Review: 

ARC provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not impact my opinion. All quotes used are subject to change upon final publication.

Ruthless Gods is the second book in the Something Dark and Holy trilogy by Emily A. Duncan. I was fully impressed with the first book--it features some of my favorite types of characters and character dynamics--and somehow, this book blew the first one out of the water.

This book is difficult to describe without giving away too much. It is set not too long after the shocking ending of Wicked Saints. Nadya and Serefin are still in Tranavia, both changed after the events of the first book. Nadya is lost, no longer sure of her purpose and place; Serefin is a young king with stars in his eyes and a moth entourage (and is, shall we say, in a dark and strange place after his resurrection). And Malachiasz...well. We all know what happened to him, and can almost imagine what he is up to between these two books. Almost.

“Some of us make our own families. … Not sure where I went wrong that mine has a monster boy in it, but there it is.”

Ruthless Gods takes the relationships in the first book and makes new connections, breaks old ones, and strengthens others. It made me fall in love with the characters all over again, and gave me new appreciation for others. The worldbuilding is expanded upon and new characters (and gods) are introduced. 

Duncan managed to make me laugh, cry, swoon, and scream while reading this book. It’s simply incredible. I think that her writing skills improved between books one and two, and those who found Wicked Saints to be okay should give Ruthless Gods a chance, even if they hadn’t planned on it. I absolutely plan on re-reading it as soon as I get my finished copy! The wait for book three is going to be rough... 

Ruthless Gods releases on April 7th. Pre-order your copy now and get an awesome moth art print! (I will affectionately call it my Goth Moth.)

Tea Pairing: I’ve curated a Malachiasz Blend on Adagio, made to replicate the tea that Malachiasz makes in Ruthless Gods. It’s primarily black tea, with raspberry and apple pieces.

read in 2019 [3/?] ↝ wicked saints by emily a. duncan ( @glitzandshadows )

literally people started clapping in my theater and i had no idea what the moment even meant

i! hate!! it!!!

if for some reason i am ever asked to articulate why we don’t pander to fanboys in the creation of media, i am going to produce screencaps of that stupid stupid scene

and to throw salt on the wound, the part where chewie reacts to leia’s death is one of 2 scenes where i was like omg Emotion is happening!

Also like…. there’s no hope for that novelization “fixing” anything. The move is fundamentally broken.

replied to your

post

:

Goodreads Blogger Voice: and I am giving this book...

and that kind of approach with books is encouraged on Twitter where authors are actually present and have to suffer through it and just. like. Goodreads and twitter are Bad.

Yes!  The people who will write elaborate, dissertation-length reviews and/or Twitter threads about the ~feelings~ of hypothetical niche readers (you wrote about cupcakes falling in love?  WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHO ARE ALLERGIC TO CUPCAKES) or fictional characters completely ignore the fact that they are often directly interacting with writers who are actually real people.  I mean, a joke is joke, right?  I’m not going to get my panties in a bunch about people joking over how a writer may use a certain word too much or lean too heavily on a certain trope, but idk.  It kind of reminds me of that time on this site where people were basically saying that because John Green (who, I get it, may not always have the type of prose or even personality that you gel with, you don’t have to like him) wrote sometimes from the perspectives of or about teenage girls who had sex with teenage boys, he MUST want to have sex with teen girls!!  That shit is really harmful and toxic.  There was no discussion of what John Green was doing, no evidence that he was in any way shape or form a predator.... It was basically a personal attack that was trying to find a way to justify a hatred for his writing?

(And, uh, for the record I like John Green’s books quite a bit.  Nobody else has to, but I do.)

Like, you can Not Like A Thing just because you dislike it.  It can just... not be for you.  There does not have to be some intense political or social reason for you not liking a thing.  It’s gotten even worse in recent years, imo, because it’s become easier for people to get ARCs (good!) and a result has been that if one person decides, after reading an ARC, that this author Must Not Be Allowed, their word is law because they’re one of the few who has read the book (bad).  The fact that books are currently not being published because of bad press around early ARCs is really sad to me.  If these books are bad, let them be bad and flop and get eaten alive by the audience at large upon publication.  But if a good book is crushed early because someone had a personal issue with it, an issue I might not have, that bothers me.  And it bothers me even more that a person’s career may be crushed because one reviewer’s opinion prevented thousands of others from having a potentially different opinion.