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spaceshipkat · 5 years

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Myth & Kat Read WS

before i dive in, a quick request: please do not send this to the author, as this is not meant for her but for any and all readers. we censor the name of the author, the characters, and the book title to help prevent her from accidentally stumbling across them thanks to tumblr’s fucked algorithm. my inbox is always open for anyone with reactions, questions, or thoughts as i read, so feel free to hop in there if you don’t want to reply directly to this post.

if you don’t want to see spoilers, block the tag “ws spoilers” and Myth and i are both using the tag “myth & kat read ws” to keep everything organized. we’re calling this a practice run for when we read CCity together when it releases next year, so bear with us while we figure out what works best. Myth’s post on WS can be found here, and her comments will be at the bottom of this post.

and to preface this, i go into every chapter with an open mind, but (as Myth points out) i did get more annoyed the more i read, so make of that what you will

and with that out of the way...

Chapter 1

this is a multi-POV book and chapter 1 begins with Nadya peeling potatoes. riveting. apparently people really like this beginning, so i’ve heard, but eh.

also, this is a personal nitpick, but i’m not the biggest fan of authors using the character’s first and last name when introducing them at the very beginning of the book, a la:

Nadez/hda Lap/teva glared up at the mountain of potatoes threatening to avalanche down over the table.

we’re five 2-3 sentence paragraphs in and already we’re supposed to feel fear for what’s happening, despite the only normal to exist so far is that Nadya is peeling potatoes and grumbling about the clerics who care for her (and who we’re supposed to care for later on, when Nadya starts worrying about their deaths, despite the fact we’ve met none of them)

“Did you hear that?” Konst/antin acted like she hadn’t spoken. His paring knife hung limp in his fingers as he listened.

grammar. why.

“Did you hear that?” Konst/antin asked, freezing with his paring knife pressed to a potato.

was that so difficult?

She tried to be glib, but the idea of the High Prince anywhere near the monastery made her shiver. He was rumored to be an extremely powerful blood mage, one of the most terrifying in all of Trana/via, a land rife with heretics.

ahhh i love a good exposition dump first thing. this could easily have waited until later on, when the High Prince (why is that capitalized) actually makes an appearance. at the very least, she could’ve just left it as “but the High Prince was rumored to be an extremely powerful blood mage, making her shiver at the thought of him attacking the monastery.” it’s not good, but better (as always, when i rewrite things, i try to stay with the author’s words rather than using ones of my own, simply to show that it can be done with their words--it’s not the words’ fault, but the author’s). plus, we know nothing about the monastery or why Nadya is even there, apart from peeling potatoes and making bad potato jokes that i’m sure ED hoped would add some levity to the book, so we have no reason to feel worried about the High Prince making a surprise appearance.

Filling Father Alexei’s washing bowl with a red dye that looked like blood, though, that was what had done them in.

Blood wasn’t a thing to be made light of, not in these times.

the chapter should’ve started with this prank so we’d 1) have more of a connection to Nadya and Kostya’s friendship, 2) see more of the world-building in the sense of how important blood is, and 3) actually meet one of the clerics we’re supposed to care for. also, please just write it like this, ED:

“Filling Father Alexei’s washing bowl with a red dye that looked like blood had done them in.”

again, not great, but it’s better

Father Alexei’s rage didn’t end in the cellars. After they scaled Potato Mountain—if they scaled Potato Mountain—they still had hours’ worth of holy texts to copy in the scriptorium. Nadya’s hands were already cramping just thinking about it.

this? this isn’t enough to make us care for him. in fact, the way Nadya talks about him makes us not care about him, even though we’re supposed to worry about him later on in this chapter and the next. (Potato Mountain just hurts my brain. is this supposed to pass for humor?)

Cannons only meant one thing: blood magic. And blood magic meant Trana/vians. For a century a holy war had raged between Kaly/azin and Trana/via. Trana/vians didn’t care that their blood magic profaned the gods. If they had their way, the gods’ touch would be eradicated from Kaly/azin like it had been from Trana/via. But the war had never reached farther than the Kaly/azin border. Until now. If Nadya could hear the cannons, that meant the war was slowly swallowing Kaly/azin alive. Inch by bloody inch it was seeping into the heart of Nadya’s country and bringing death and destruction with it.

why couldn’t she have found a better way to tell us this than an ill-timed info dump? we’re supposed to be worrying about an attack (with all the number of times cannons are mentioned) and yet here we’re being given a lesson.

also, i’m particularly not fond of these four sentences in particular:

But the war had never reached farther than the Kaly/azin border. Until now. If Nadya could hear the cannons, that meant the war was slowly swallowing Kaly/azin alive. Inch by bloody inch it was seeping into the heart of Nadya’s country and bringing death and destruction with it.

for one, fragments hurt me on a physical level when they’re used this often, and for another, i don’t care that the war has come, i don’t care that Nadya’s country is being invaded, i don’t care that Trana/vians want the gods eradicated. i’m typically fond of third person, and usually prefer both reading and writing it, but this is all happening so distantly that i might as well be hovering over the entire scene.

Nadya looked at Kostya, whose gaze was flint-eyed but fearful. They were just acolytes with kitchen knives.

they both actually hold their own in the fight, so no idea why this is even here besides trying to build up suspense.

Kostya grabbed her hand and shook his head slowly, his dark eyes solemn.

“Don’t do this, Nadya,” he said.

“If we are attacked, I will not hide,” she replied stubbornly.

“Even if it means a choice between saving this place and the entire kingdom?”

now would be a good time for exposition. if you have to use a reader’s lack of knowledge to build up suspense, especially in chapter 1, especially when you’re bouncing around the truth that anyone would have naturally thought of first irl, you need to revisit your stakes.

so a couple paragraphs before this:

She would protect the only family she had; that was what she was trained for

she was saying that she and Kostya were just acolytes with kitchen knives. if that’s the case, what have they been training in? (and no, i’m still not connected to the monastery at all. we’ve only seen Potato Mountain, the kitchen, and the cellar, though neither of the latter two have been described as clearly as the former, which is a problem bc they’re just floating heads rn)

Nadya had been told the protocol countless times. Move to the back of the chapel. Pray, because that was what she did best. The others would go to the gates to fight. She was to be protected.

we are seeing none of this, fwiw, and i still feel no fear

Can I have that?” Nadya reached for Anna’s dagger. Anna wordlessly handed it to her. It felt solid, not flimsy like the paring knife.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Anna said.

Kostya shot Nadya a pointed look. In the monastery’s hierarchy, Anna—as an ordained priestess—outranked Nadya. If Anna ordered her to go to the sanctuary, she would have no choice but to obey.

if Nadya isn’t supposed to fight, why would Anna hand over the fucking blade in the first place? Nadya also takes off to fight and Anna does nothing to stop her.

Nadya once wished she could blend in with the other Kalyazi orphans at the monastery, but the truth was, for as long as she could remember, when she prayed the gods listened. Miracles happened, magic. It made her valuable. It made her dangerous.

why can’t she blend in? as far as i know, she doesn’t have “i can talk to gods” tattooed on her forehead, so there’s no reason she couldn’t blend in. and for that matter, we’ve met only three people and heard of two more, so how are we to know that Nadya really doesn’t fit in?

this:

To the left ran a path leading to the men’s cells; to the right, another trailed off into the forests where an ancient graveyard that held the bodies of saints centuries gone was kept by the monastery.

should’ve been written like this:

A path on her left led to the men’s cells, the one to her right leading through the forest to an ancient cemetery holding every saint who had once lived in this monastery.

and this:

It snowed most nights—and days—on the top of the Baikkle Mountains.

should’ve been this:

Rarely did it stop snowing on the Baikkle Mountains.

still not great, but still better

Nadya scanned for Father Alexei, finding him at the top of the stairs. The priests and priestesses who trained for battle waited in the courtyard and her heart twisted at just how few of them there were. Her confidence faltered. Barely two dozen against a company of Trana/vians. This was never supposed to happen. The monastery was in the middle of the holy mountains; it was difficult—almost impossible—to reach, especially for those unused to Kaly/azin’s forbidding terrain.

it’s been hinted at that Nadya is in the monastery thanks to her power to commune with gods so she can be protected from those who would use her for that purpose (although why the Trana/vians want her is a mystery, considering they seem to be an atheist culture), so why isn’t she more well-protected? it’s common knowledge the Trana/vians are bred for war, so it shouldn’t come as too great a surprise when they decide to attack the monastery.

Nadya raised her eyebrows expectantly, willing [Father Alexei] to accept her place here. She had to stay. She had to fight. She couldn’t hide in the cellars any longer, not while heretics tore apart her country, her home.

WE HAVE SEEN NONE OF THIS. WHY ARE WE SUPPOSED TO CARE ABOUT HER COUNTRY? WHY DOES SHE CARE ABOUT HER COUNTRY? for that matter, she’s been told that, in the event of an invasion, she needs to hide in order to pray, and yet suddenly Father Alexei is cool with her standing there to fight with him???

How could the Trana/vians know she was there? The only people who knew Nadya existed were in the monastery.

Well … there was the tsar. But he was far, far away in the capital. It was unlikely news of her had spread into Trana/via.

The spell was a ploy for time; if the Trana/vians had a blood mage who could counteract her magic, it wouldn’t last.

her magic is literally given to her by the gods, and yet blood magic can counteract that? beyond that, how can she form the gods’ magic into spellwork in the first place? they’re fucking gods???

But the possibility of a Trana/vian lieutenant or general—a mage promoted because of sheer magical power alone—made her feel like running back into the sanctuary where she belonged.

[The goddess] Marz/enya scoffed at her doubt.

1) does ED realize that the ranks of general and lieutenant are nowhere near each other?

2) yay more immortal beings acting like teenagers. i love when gods scoff

imma rewrite this:

A hard chunk of ice slammed into her back, pain ramming down to her toes. She was thrown onto Kostya and they both went crashing to the ground.

like this:

A chunk of ice slammed into her back and threw her onto Kostya, knocking them both to the ground.

it’s not good, but it’s better and keeps the narration active, not passive.

The courtyard became thick with magic and steel as soldiers swarmed up the stairs.

if the cannons were just firing at the mountain (and the city at its base?), how tf did the soldiers march up 7000 steps in a matter of minutes, especially since Nadya had just frozen the stone? yeah they have blood magic, but it’d take them a few minutes to realize the ice was magicked and not natural.

Panicked prayers to the gods would only be met with more magic; Nadya had to decide for herself how it was used.

she hasn’t once wondered why the gods give her magic. sure she may have accepted it, but this is a book and readers need to at least be aware of the fact she doesn’t know why she has magic (or, if she does, that she knows why)

Pure, white light followed her touch and though she wasn’t entirely sure what it would do, she found out quickly enough when she sliced a Trana/vian soldier. She only caught his arm, but like a poison, the light blackened his flesh at the point of contact.

*squints at Sha/dow & Bone*

She staggered back into Kostya. The urge to drop her voryen needled at her hand.

I killed him. I’ve never killed anyone.

okay but she literally just said that every child of war-torn lands need to know what to do when the enemy comes calling, yet suddenly she’s quibbling over killing an enemy soldier?

Just when she thought she could take no more, [the god] Vece/slav’s presence swept in, enveloping Nadya like a heavy blanket. He soothed out the magic, pushing it away until she could breathe. She hadn’t called on him; he had simply known.

suddenly she doesn’t need to talk to the gods to make them help her? is it too much to ask that we’ll know why???

There were whispers of the Trana/vian High Prince throughout the monastery. A boy made general a mere six months after venturing to the front when he was sixteen years old. One who had used the war to fuel his already terrible grasp of blood magic. A monster.

maybe general means something else in the Trana/vian army, bc there’s no fucking way he would be made a general at age sixteen

It was a slaughter and it was her fault. The Trana/vians wouldn’t be there if not for her. If she died, would that make this massacre worth it?

yeah i don’t really care? she’s still given us nothing to base our feelings about the monastery and everyone in it on. we don’t even really have a reason to care about her yet.

She stared at him, horrified. Run? After everyone she loved had been cut down she was supposed to flee to safety? What would that make her, if she ran to save herself? The monastery was the only home Nadya had ever known.

no matter how many times you tell me that it’s her home, i still don’t care. the chapter started with her complaining about her chores, which was the first impression of her home we got, so why are we suddenly supposed to care?

She couldn’t break free. She could only stumble as Anna pulled her to a mausoleum, kicking the door open. The last thing she saw before Anna pulled her into the dark was Kostya, his body shuddering as another bolt thudded into him.

in case it wasn’t clear, i still don’t care

to conclude, this scene should’ve happened in chapter 2. the book throws us into the action far too quickly, without any buildup to make us see the normal become abnormal, to make us connected with any of the characters who we’re clearly supposed to care for, and does nothing to prove that Nadya really loves the people who look after her. if chapter 1 had started with the prank, sent them to the kitchen to peel potatoes, and ended on the attack beginning, it might’ve been different. i’m always a character reader, so i prefer slower beginnings, but i can sometimes appreciate a fast-paced one. this is not one of those times.

Myth Responds:

Welp, Kat was both more thorough and more annoyed than me, though we agree that we needed more time with the characters to care as much as the book tells us N/ady/a does. Also the awkward phrasing. This really does feel like it should have come later in the book (second or third chapter, maybe?) just to let us understand life and form a connection with other people. K/osty/a could have been a fully realized character who we mourned. We all know I’m not usually a fan of Look At This Feeling kind of writing, either.

THAT BEING SAID. I’m hopeful and nobody can take that away from me!

Bonus for Tulio gif.

#myth & kat read ws #ws spoilers

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