I’m three chapters into T. Kingfisher’s *What Moves the Dead* and I’m struggling a bit. The vibes are great, opening line was great. Love the tags, the representation. But there’s something about the voice that bugs me. Let me share some examples.
> “[My ancestors] finally settled in Gallacia, which is near Moldavia and even smaller. Presumably they settled there because nobody else wanted it. The Ottoman Empire didn’t even bother to make us a vassal state, if that tells you anything.”
> “Denton was a tall, lanky man with silvering hair, probably approaching fifty if not over the edge. He wore his clothes as if they were clothes rather than symbols of rank, and his mustache was too long for fashion… Ah. American. That explained the clothes and the way he stood with his legs wide and his elbows out…”
> “I mentioned that we were a fierce warrior people, right? Even though we were bad at it?”
I thought the introduction to Eugenia Potter was fine, but just about every other moment has something off. The narrator can feel a bit pretentious, and sometimes it sounds like they’re doing a voiceover for a bad movie. I don’t know.
I’ve never DNFed a book, I don’t want to. I see praise here and elsewhere, I want to like it. But these moments really take me out of it. I want to know, for those that finished this, does it keep going like this? It seems like it’s limited to introduction s maybe? If it does keep on like this, is worth it to stick with it?
by GrizzlyRob97
1 Comment
It’s not her best but the premise is interesting and the end explanation is worth it. I’d keep going.
I think she’s experimenting with the pronoun business and of course this is one of her retellings so she’s trying to make it sound like the original which was of a pretentious era.