Ari/30-somethinglikes fictional worlds and hypotheticals;sometimes goes on about books and things
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Yelling At The Bookshelf: The Crowthistle Chronicles
Yelling at the Bookshelf: The Crowthistle Chronicles
According to something (attributed to Nancy Pearl) that I read somewhere once upon a time, there are four doors a reader can open to immerse themselves in a book. Those are:
the story (the plot)
the characters
the setting (the worldbuilding)
and the language (the characteristics of the writing itself – the grammar, vocabulary, imagery, and so on)
I am now going to yell into the void about The Crowthistle Chronicles by Cecilia Dart-Thornton, and my subjective opinion about the books. If you get tired of it, feel free to clamber elsewhere on the web.
There are four books, and this is how I felt about them:
Books 1 and 2: The Iron Tree and The Well of Tears
★★★✫ Story
★★ Pacing (slow)
★★★ Characters
★★★★✫ Worldbuilding (quite detailed)
★★★★ Language (very descriptive)
Books 3 and 4: Weatherwitch and Fallowblade
★★✫ Story
★ Pacing (so slow, especially book 3)
★★✫ Characters
★★★ Worldbuilding (suspension of disbelief issue in book 4)
★★★ Language (sometimes didactic)
Of the four, I would perhaps recommend The Well of Tears, and skip the others (I did appreciate book 4, but I ranted about it for hours after finishing it). All of the books, with the potential exception of Weatherwitch, focus on the romance of a young couple against a backdrop of political intrigue. So they’re romantasy…but only Fallowblade concludes without tragedy thwarting the couple's final happiness. The sections of political intrigue often read like a history book.
The good:
If you love detailed worldbuilding, you might enjoy The Iron Tree and/or The Well of Tears. The second one most resembled what I’d expect from a fantasy adventure romance: investigate the secret heritage, acquire the important thing before the villains, and so on. Both books have perhaps the most diverse range of faerie-type beings that I have ever encountered (they may hail from serious research into Irish folktales, but that’s just a guess), and their presence is a quintessential part of life for the characters. If you want to envision life with the fair folk as your neighbors, separated by a line of horseshoes, bells, and traditions, then this series certainly delivers.
If you love beautiful prose and eloquent descriptions, you may also enjoy the books. The author’s writing about nature has been described as Tolkien-esque, but I think it goes beyond that. The author paints landscapes with words, relishing each chance to set the scene. If you’re looking for witty dialogue, however, I’d look elsewhere. Also, some of the characters come off as didactic in the last two books, which may annoy some readers. I’d stick with either The Iron Tree or The Well of Tears.
The bad (or the not-so-good, if you want to be charitable):
The characters are generally either average or somewhat flat, moving like pieces on a chessboard as the story dictates. I can believe that they are decent people and recognize their struggles, but I wasn’t especially invested in them. This is a little different for the couple in books 3 and 4—mainly book 4, Fallowblade, as book 3 only lays the foundations for the romantic relationship—because I inferred so much about the characters. In hindsight, these two are what the whole series is about…and the story doesn’t flesh them out. It doesn’t use their conflicts of interest, their stubborn pride, or their misunderstandings of each other to wring out any empathy for them, and it’s a terrible missed opportunity. I can’t help but wonder what the books would look like if Crowthistle, who lends the series his name, was actually the focal character.
The story is okay, excepting book 4 (which included sections that destroyed my suspension of belief). However, the pacing is so slow. If you made an outline it would be interesting enough, but reading it is like watching a train crash in slow motion…through a pair of binoculars, from a nearby mountain. All the books have pacing issues, but I felt like the protagonist did almost nothing significant to the plot in book 3. If you like fast-paced action or whiplash drama, this is not the series for you. If you’re here for the scenery, though—sink in!
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*describes connotation as the 'flavor' of the word*
the problem with reading and writing leading to a strong vocabulary is that you tend to know the vibe of words instead of their meanings.
if I used this word in a sentence, would it make sense? absolutely. if you asked me what it meant, could I tell you? absolutely not.
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