Book review: The Mirador by Sarah Monette
Okay, so, this book review will be a great deal less stuffy than the previous one, because I actually care about this book and don't want to spend two hours putting cliches together. I wanna just talk.
The Mirador is the long-awaited sequel to Sarah Monette's Melusine and The Virtu, which currently rank as my two most favourite fantasy novels ever, which may give you a bit of a hint as to why The Mirador is so important and long-awaited (at least for me) and why I breezed through it in all of half a week despite working full time. I did, in fact, get a lot of reading done at work. Mostly cause a lot of my work consists of waiting for a program to be done running.
I won't give you the back blurb of The Mirador, because in my opinion it could be deemed slightly spoilerish toward Melusine and The Virtu, but I AM going to give you the back blurb of Melusine, so that you can get hooked. In my opinion, anyone with healthy interest in extremely well-written psychosis, angst, magic, and M/M relationships should pick this book up immediately, as well as The Virtu. The Mirador...... well, we'll get to that.
Back blurb for Sarah Monette's Melusine:
"A dashing and highly respected wizard, Felix Harrowgate thought he had eluded his dark past. Within the walls of the Mirador - Melusine's citadel of power and magic - Felix believed he was free of his abusive former master, a wizard who had enslaved him, body and soul, and trained him to pass as a nobleman. He was wrong.
Raised as a kept-thief and trained as an assassin, Mildmay the Fox is used to being hunted. Having slipped his Keeper long ago, he survives as a cat burglar - until he's caught by a mysterious magician using a powerful calling charm. And yet the magician was looking not for Mildmay - but for Felix Harrowgate...
Bound by fate, the broken wizard Felix and the wanted killer Mildmay will journey far from Melusine through lands thick with strage magics and terrible demons of darkness - but it is the secret from their pasts that will either save them or destroy them..."
Some notes on Melusine and The Virtu: I love these books. The narration takes turns going between first person PoVs of Felix and Mildmay. I should also point out that Sarah Monette is one of the best authors I've seen when it comes to putting colloquial, 'incorrect' english/grammar down on paper and not making it grate on my nerves. I recently picked up a book.. boy, what was it... ok, I don't remember, but oh boy... I put it down after I read the first page, it was absolutely grating. Sarah Monette makes it look easy. Mildmay's slang is fantastic, and his curse phrases are becoming some of my favourites. Anyway... the point is that Felix goes insane. This is no big secret; I'm not spoiling anything. But yeah, Felix goes insane, and the point is that this series is not to be taken lightly. It has a lot of heavy and distrubing imagery, but oh boy is it amazing. I honestly think everyone should at least try it. Psychosis can get ugly but Sarah Monette writes it so well it gives me the creeps.
So that was my little plug for Melusine and The Virtu. Now moving on to The Mirador.
My opinion of The Mirador by Sarah Monette: Quite honestly, I think Ms Monette dropped the stick on this one. Possibly I think this was because of how much I loved the first two books and how much I therefore expected of the third, but I don't think so. Compared to the fast-paced action of books one and two, three was about nothing. Absolutely nothing. Nothing happens, and the only way I can justify this is that there will be a fourth. So I'm guessing The Mirador only served as a transition, and I can sort of see how that could be. But a big part of me thinks that Ms Monette could have condensed The Mirador into two or three chapters. But oh well, I'm not her, maybe she knows better. All that said though - I still enjoyed the books. And the reason is this: Sarah Monette has a real knack for characters. Her characters are absolutely amazing, especially the ones who narrate. And even though the book is hardly about anything enchanting plot-wise, it is certainly still enchanting when we see the world through the characters' eyes, and that is why I still enjoyed this book. So in conclusion: no, it wasn't nearly as good as the previous two, but it was still enjoyable. I could say more, but only spoilers, So I'll stop here.
The Mirador is the long-awaited sequel to Sarah Monette's Melusine and The Virtu, which currently rank as my two most favourite fantasy novels ever, which may give you a bit of a hint as to why The Mirador is so important and long-awaited (at least for me) and why I breezed through it in all of half a week despite working full time. I did, in fact, get a lot of reading done at work. Mostly cause a lot of my work consists of waiting for a program to be done running.
I won't give you the back blurb of The Mirador, because in my opinion it could be deemed slightly spoilerish toward Melusine and The Virtu, but I AM going to give you the back blurb of Melusine, so that you can get hooked. In my opinion, anyone with healthy interest in extremely well-written psychosis, angst, magic, and M/M relationships should pick this book up immediately, as well as The Virtu. The Mirador...... well, we'll get to that.
Back blurb for Sarah Monette's Melusine:
"A dashing and highly respected wizard, Felix Harrowgate thought he had eluded his dark past. Within the walls of the Mirador - Melusine's citadel of power and magic - Felix believed he was free of his abusive former master, a wizard who had enslaved him, body and soul, and trained him to pass as a nobleman. He was wrong.
Raised as a kept-thief and trained as an assassin, Mildmay the Fox is used to being hunted. Having slipped his Keeper long ago, he survives as a cat burglar - until he's caught by a mysterious magician using a powerful calling charm. And yet the magician was looking not for Mildmay - but for Felix Harrowgate...
Bound by fate, the broken wizard Felix and the wanted killer Mildmay will journey far from Melusine through lands thick with strage magics and terrible demons of darkness - but it is the secret from their pasts that will either save them or destroy them..."
Some notes on Melusine and The Virtu: I love these books. The narration takes turns going between first person PoVs of Felix and Mildmay. I should also point out that Sarah Monette is one of the best authors I've seen when it comes to putting colloquial, 'incorrect' english/grammar down on paper and not making it grate on my nerves. I recently picked up a book.. boy, what was it... ok, I don't remember, but oh boy... I put it down after I read the first page, it was absolutely grating. Sarah Monette makes it look easy. Mildmay's slang is fantastic, and his curse phrases are becoming some of my favourites. Anyway... the point is that Felix goes insane. This is no big secret; I'm not spoiling anything. But yeah, Felix goes insane, and the point is that this series is not to be taken lightly. It has a lot of heavy and distrubing imagery, but oh boy is it amazing. I honestly think everyone should at least try it. Psychosis can get ugly but Sarah Monette writes it so well it gives me the creeps.
So that was my little plug for Melusine and The Virtu. Now moving on to The Mirador.
My opinion of The Mirador by Sarah Monette: Quite honestly, I think Ms Monette dropped the stick on this one. Possibly I think this was because of how much I loved the first two books and how much I therefore expected of the third, but I don't think so. Compared to the fast-paced action of books one and two, three was about nothing. Absolutely nothing. Nothing happens, and the only way I can justify this is that there will be a fourth. So I'm guessing The Mirador only served as a transition, and I can sort of see how that could be. But a big part of me thinks that Ms Monette could have condensed The Mirador into two or three chapters. But oh well, I'm not her, maybe she knows better. All that said though - I still enjoyed the books. And the reason is this: Sarah Monette has a real knack for characters. Her characters are absolutely amazing, especially the ones who narrate. And even though the book is hardly about anything enchanting plot-wise, it is certainly still enchanting when we see the world through the characters' eyes, and that is why I still enjoyed this book. So in conclusion: no, it wasn't nearly as good as the previous two, but it was still enjoyable. I could say more, but only spoilers, So I'll stop here.