Pretenders to the Throne of God by Adrian Tchaikovsky
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm utterly gobsmacked. It feels like it's been a long time since I've read a book I was so ambivalent about for the first half, only to be riveted harder than so many others... and then to break down into tears by the end.

I mean, sweet...

Let me explain. This series, for me, is one of the more difficult series I've read. Not because it's THAT hard in comparison to some of the most sprawling of Epic Fantasies out there, with a huge cast of strange-sounding characters, factions, cities, terms, etc., but because practically EVERY character is hugely flawed, has massive turning points, over and over again, and the whole thing is just so damn AMBITIOUS. And glorious. But before it gets to the glorious bits, it's also depressing and disturbing as all hell because these wonderful characters are ALL pretty much on the wrong side of things. They're all working for the baddies. They're ALL baddies. There's no good ones.

It's exhausting. Painful. And even when they wake up and do something RIGHT, it's almost never even remotely enough. And yet, huge things DO happen and change everything and doing the right thing never pays off IMMEDIATELY. It's heartbreaking and REAL at the same time.

And now, as painful as this book is, I've got this horrible little desire to own all the books in hardcover and start reading it again from the start. For sheer wickedness and misery of it.

For the wickedness and misery.

*chokes a sob*

Damn.

What a damned book. Just wow.

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