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This is a fun read. Ursula Vernon / T. Kingfisher has a most enjoyable sardonic sense of humor, which I recommend! I think this is a great read for fans of fairy-tales, and it is worth reading for the two alt fairy-tale short stories "Toad Words" and "Boar & Apples".

I love T Kingfisher's sense of sardonic humor. I love fairytales. However, while I enjoyed this retelling at many points along the way, it isn't her best work in the realm of fairtale retellings. It is a fun, quick read with good humor. Solid read.

2 stars means "It was OK".

If you already know a fair bit about Colonial British History, The Abolitionist Movement, The Opium Wars, Etymology, and Linguistics, then move along. You won't learn anything new. This book isn't written for you. I think it would be far more enjoyable if you know nothing of these subjects.

The magic system is interesting. Definitely some dark spots. The character development is not great. It would have been nice, for example, to have more character development of Victoire. We really only get a hint of it as what feels like an afterthought at the end. Ramy almost as bad. The main characters are all walking stereotypes, and each is simply an incarnation of their culture of origin. Even that exists not in a deep way, but mostly just as a function of their difference.

It was very transparent what the author was doing, all the way through. There were a few moments of delight (mostly etymological in nature), but the ending is blindingly obvious from very early on in the book. There was only one actual surprise in the entire book (and that was in the timing of an event, not the actual event). So, for me, this is an OK Historical Fantasy with a cool linguistic magic system, very strong anti-colonial theme, poor character development of most characters, and you can see the end coming for hundreds of pages. It was difficult to stay engaged all the way to the finish, because so much was so obvious. This took me far longer to read than most Fantasy books, because it was just hard to keep slogging through for so long with no surprises and no character depth.

Just can't stop reading this series.