Finished:
The Age of Madness book 2: the Trouble with Peace by Joe Abercrombie
9.5/10. Spoilery review below!
I started reading this book the same day I finished book 1 because I'm very in love with this series. I read the first one for a book club and no one but me liked it but they're all objectively wrong actually.
Fave parts: ♥ The brothel chapter: Leo's twoish times of 'he didn't like guys...or did he?' Leo figuring out or rather totally ignoring his sexuality continue to be a really nailbiting situation. He's so close to getting it!! I can see people shipping Leo and Orso and I kind of do too. But anyway Leo getting very uncomfortable in the brothel was such a standout handful of scenes in a standout chapter. His rising irritation and anxiety felt so real. He had to spend the whole diplomatic meeting convincing himself he wasn't gay and that of course he isn't gay because it's a bad thing to be anyway while the King's like dangling dickroot in his face instead of thinking about you know diplomacy and the impending insurrection and he blows the meeting completely and THEN gets lost in the brothel backrooms afterwards. So good!! Only to stumble home and find his two best friends fucking around together!!! If he'd walked in on that literally any other day, he wouldn't have had such a bad reaction, I honestly feel that.
Then at the end when he's like 'I should have just flirted with the king and bent the knee and bent right over' because a) he really wanted to anyway and b) he thinks that's what Orso probably did.
Except we know Orso didn't even have to do that, he just engaged intellectually and the King fucking buttoned up his dick and they had a great friendly conversation?? I love the Leo/Orso contrast, it's fantastic. I want them to kiss so bad.
♥ Savine! This is what GRRM thought he was doing with Cersei but he imo didn't pull it off at all. Now why on earth didn't she try to talk Leo out of this dumb shit rebellion?? Oooh she can't resist a Scheme, especially if it lets her take out her complicated feelings about Leo and her 'dad' all at once. I'm eagerly anticipating a scene with Savine and Glokta and even one with Savine and her mother. AND Savine and Leo's mother tbh. Girl really needs some reason in her life and Zuri is 100% wormtongueing her for Bayaz or someone else, I swear. I know you can't tell a bad bitch what to do but someone really needed to push her to NOT be on an active fucking battlefield while she's pregnant as all shit. But she continues to be my fave character I think, she's so beautifully complicated and messed up and inspirational but also a cautionary tale. I am SO GLAD she finally got to tell Osro they were half-siblings though. He really deserved to know why they couldn't get married and it's not like it's going to stop the pining but he deserved to know Savine!!!
♥ I always love the chapters Joe Abercrombie does during very pivotal events where he switches to so many different POVs of people we've never met before or never had POVs of before! Orso's mom POV was so cool. The random people in the crowd/on the field are so cool to hear from when we're almost always hearing from the movers and shakers but also to find that they are having the same thoughts and feelings by and large.
♥ Pike as the Weaver reveal! I had a suspicion it was an inside job and I do still wonder if Glokta was behind it in some regard since the Breakers/Burners target Bayaz's banks first and firstmostly. I'm interested in how Vick responds long term. Her loyalties are still totally with Glokta I feel since he more than his establishment saved her from the camps but she's definitely a tough one to read and on purpose. If she goes to Glokta with it and he's like 'lol ya I did that' that honestly wouldn't be too surprising but then there's the fact that Savine got so caught up in the first riot...it'd be crazy to reveal her adopted dad was behind the most traumatic event in her life. It seems preposterous that he wouldn't know what Pike was up to. We'll see!!
Criticism: ■ Rikke??? Rikke my love?? Do not make of your heart a stone, pull up, you went too hard. I'm glad she's taking over the North but I don't like where we're going with her. BUT I am sensing a flip or something for book 3. I did LOVE that she warned Orso with the note. I didn't love most of her chapters though but not like severely. I'm glad she betrayed Leo and Savine though. And I'm glad she flipped Clover. Will she ever get her sight back? Or is the thing now that everything she sees
■ the Clover chapters were kinda weak overall as in the first book but him betraying Stour was good shit. That he did it in conjunction with Rikke betraying Leo and Stour was also good! I'm excited to see what the North is gonna look like now.
IN CONCLUSION: I've already started reading book 3 and I'm already pre-sad that that's the end of the trilogy
