Scrolling through the positive reviews on Good Reads and the Tumblr tag for The Raven Scholar and feeling like I'm being gaslit by all the positivity.
If this book is restoring your faith in the fantasy genre, I truly fear for what you were reading beforehand. Please go read better things.
This book was genuinely terrible. On pretty much every level.
The characters were shallow and boring. They're supposed to be in their mid 20s to 40s and they all act like teenagers. The dialogue is embarrassing. The romance was incredibly lackluster. I could not have cared less whether they got back together or not. The ravens were obnoxious. No one's motivations really made sense.
The POV structure was an absolute mess. Someone tell me who was narrating the book at the end when the supposed narrators were trapped in a painting?
The murder mystery was basically irrelevant halfway through. The trials for the throne were ridiculous and half the time, barely explained. The world building was atrocious. The magic system was nonexistent. There were just some magic powers that certain characters had that were brought out occasionally for plot purposes. Nothing is explained.
The pacing was painful. In no way did this book need to be 600+ pages. The big twist at the end was overly complicated for no reason. What was the point of the brother other than a stalling tactic so Neema didn't have to actually use her brain? Why did he want or need to trap the guardians? There is no sense of urgency or stakes in this book despite involving a murder mystery and a competition for the throne and maybe an impending war and gods potentially returning to destroy the world.
The only semi interesting bits in this book were Ruko and Yana and they were barely in it. I guess the next book would give me more Ruko but I cannot possibly imagine reading another one of these. I will not torture myself with that.
Putting this out there for other people who did not like this book and are also feeling gaslit by all of the rave reviews. You are not alone. Come talk to me about how much you hated this book.
