3 stars
I will start by saying that I enjoyed the audiobook of this one better than the first. The first audiobook was narrated by the author, a quality that I usually very much enjoy as the author has insight the reader doesn’t and it comes across in the way they read, which is a real treat. However, I really disliked Valente’s reading of the first book. It was rather dull and monotonous. This one was read by S. J. Tucker who gave a much more lively reading of the book, which made me engage with it more. The story itself was similar to the first with lots of random encounters and weird adventures. Great descriptions and world building but very slow on the plot. I think one of the main things I don’t like about Valente’s stories is the amount of backstories she includes. Almost always within five minutes of encountering a new character, the reader is barraged with that character’s life story. While this can be interesting, the fact that it happens every single time is a bit annoying. It would have been nice if Valente parsed through her ideas and included the really interesting ones or those pertinent to the plot. Reading the book, it seems the Valente wanted to build up a whole world and didn’t care much about the actual story. Overall, a good read. The library has the third audiobook (read by the author- we’ll see how that goes) so I will continue the series, but not sure if I will finish it. It is an interesting series, but I don’t love it.
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