i'm sad. talk to me about this book. (coherent thoughts incoming at a later date. all i have to say now, one evening after finishing it, is that it was both extremely good and extremely tragic.)
i'm also sad. and excited? there was so much awful stuff happening in that book but it's such a good book, i like it a lot. Spoiler: spoilers Spoiler: if you're going to read the book and haven't yet don't look at this Spoiler: i'm serious the big reveal explained why, over halfway through the book, i wondered in passing why i didn't really feel like i knew baru even though you're inside her head for the whole thing. makes sense once you realize that she was hiding so much. also i was reading the mistborn series around the same time and when that guy died talking about throwing something down a well my brain glitched and i thought sagely to myself "ah, this is where wayne ends up" and was sad about wayne dying until i remembered that ... wayne is from a completely different series by a completely different author set in a completely different universe. so that was weird.
I'm sort of in intellectual kismeses with this book. I didn't exactly like it, but I am in complete awe of how incredibly well it does what it sets out to do.
I didn't think there'd be a Baru thread but turns out there is one so fuck it we're performing necromancy upon it. I have only just started the second book. Only four chapters in or so? So not very far. I am already so fucking terrified. When I finished the first book I ugly cried for like ten minutes straight. And then was disconsolate for several days to the point of needing to write a fucking poem to try and cope with the grief. It was fine. ...and then I started the second book and grieved all over again. And I am preparing myself for future grieving given some of the shit being said about Tain Hu. Which is vague and ominous and I don't like it! Not one bit! I do not know you Ms. Bane of Wives but I can already tell I'm going to hate you!! Also now that I have started the second book I have to say that I am honestly amazed at how much I like Baru. She's kind of a bastard and I figured out what her plot was early into the rebellion. I didn't know exactly how she was going to do it, but I knew she was and I spent most of the book sitting there actively hoping Tain Hu would figure it out and then stab her to death. Alas Tain Hu did not figure it out but also I guess that is a good thing because no I am actually just very fond of Baru. She's done horrible things and will only do more horrible things but I dunno she's just charming and I want her to be happy. I also continue to remain really impressed at how well the first book did what it did. It's thematically very tight. Wonderful use of recurring symbols. I like how Tain Hu is not just a character but also a rhetorical device. And while I knew she was going to do the fuck shit she got up to, I was very impressed with how like charismatic Baru is. She's a shit. I knew she was going to do it, but it's easy to get caught up in her bullshit. Only to remember that, no, she is a fuck with a very particular stated goal and a very particular way she is going to go about said goal. Even when I didn't want her to win and actively wanted her to fail I was still charmed by her. And now we're fully devoted to "Baru better fucking win I swear to fucking god." Is she still a fuck? Yeah. Is she going to commit more atrocities? Oh definitely. But I desperately want this bastard of a woman to win. More than anything I want her to succeed and to be happy. I've been thinking a lot about how Tain Hu's fate is very poetic. For a variety of reasons. Like she's not just literally killed by the sea but also figuratively so. As she died for Baru's stated goal of saving Taranoke, an island nation, and she died by the methods of a naval empire that Baru is utilizing to save said home. And Baru herself is like the sea. Foul tempered and mercurial. Mysterious. It seems calm on the surface, but there's a rip waiting to take you out and drown you. Tain Hu was killed by the sea in so many ways and it makes me so sad but also I am just. In awe of how romantic it is. It hurts me. So much. But there's just such a poetic romance to it that I can't help but love it. Hu...
