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(2 / 5)
Sea of Ink and Gold #1
Reviewing this book is difficult. It seemed to have everything I could ever want: Assassins, Pirates, Magic, and a Book in a society where everyone is illiterate and reading is unheard of. But the pacing was just so agonizingly slow! I was more than halfway through the 440 page book before I really felt like something was starting to happen, over 200 pages of wandering boredom. About 300 pages in I finally started to see the story Traci Chee was trying to tell, started to see the threads she had been sewing start to weave together, but by then I was just ready for the book to be finished. I did actually like the ending though, with explosions of action and mysteries revealed. I just wish the journey to get there wasn’t so dull!
Chee really does have a good story here, if you can bear to slog through the slow two-thirds of The Reader. I think if the action was kicked up a bit, and the novel was about 150 pages shorter, this book would have been great. But as it stands, the great ending just doesn’t make up for it. I’m a bit curious to know what happens from here, but not sure I have it in me to jump into the sequel for a while.