Juan Sebastian > Recent Status Updates

Calling your daughter ‘Barbarian’ is unhinged no matter how much the author tries to normalize it.

Oh this book is just a complete fumble. Directionless, characters running around like chickens with their heads cut off; death flags and character assassinating passages in them; anticlimactic character-defining moments (why here and to something so stupidly basic??). Fumble fumble fumble.

Cute twist, albeit predictable. Still, the book is directionless and I fear the series might end up being a book, maybe even two books too long at this point. The meandering has returned and the momentum established by the stakes of last book has completely ground to a halt. Book 4 could have either been placed closer to the end or book 5 or 6 could’ve been the last from the impressions I’m getting at the moment.

Feeling a bit like a skip tbh. Bored of MINOS, not beatable enough. No direction for the book. Feels a bit like a regression to book 1.

I mean it’s good, but so far it just feels like book 4.5? I love that we took our time to grieve and process, but I’m pretty far in and the plot of this book without relation to the previous one is maybe barely getting started.

I’m surprised at how patient the book has been. It truly wants you to feel the consequences of last book and seems to understand how exhausted one might be after reading it. I feel like we might finally be getting into some plot but I enjoyed the time to breathe.

I’m kinda surprised by the start of this book. It is exactly the opposite of every other start of the other books. I like it but it took me unawares and I’m trying to adapt lmao.

It’s a clever pairing that which has been made. Chosen one vs egalitarian society. I wonder if this is going to be explored or if it’s just coincidental.

Hated the suspense of not knowing what had happened in the interim and so respect the beginning of this book. It definitely feels a bit sidequest-y, but I guess it makes sense in the context of the overall story. We’ll see if this book justifies itself. I trust so.

Ok but WHAT!? So cute, so heartwarming.

I’m happy and yet disappointed on this part of the book. Love political intrigue but Hadrian is simply not a player in it. Great stuff all around though. Better books than the first third of the book had.

Awesome fight; the denouement wasn’t great. I loved the framing but the new conflicts introduced were a bit contrived, and I feel like it left the book without a framework of what to look forward to. Yes, the next chapter will probably do that but this is how I feel so far.

Pretty nice! Want to see more of the Xenobites. Mostly, I want to see the linguistic learn new languages! He should have asked the leader to learn! Idk…it’s the little things…

Good start; like the political intrigue, looking forward to more of it after the action-exploration parts.

Finally some direction!

This might be my favorite bunch of chapters so far. Hadrian is frustrating and his actions sometimes don’t make sense but when you get past that it’s not so bad. The setups are great, albeit very fantasy, more than sci-fi, which is not an insult at all. A lot of small mistakes in both grammar and worldbuilding but IVe already accepted they’re par for the course.

Especially the last few chapters have been good for the worldbuilding on a macro scale, and I like the relationship at the forefront of it. The book is meandering a bit and it seems kinda directionless apart from a veeery general goal but I’m enjoying it—up to a point. There is a lot of sloppy worldbuilding in the sense that offhand comments, etc. are contradictory with the lore established so a bit annoying.

It feels on purpose but I just have to say that the ack of agency on Hadrian’s hands is rough. He’s a very passive character despite all the efforts he seems to make to not be. The story promises change in that regard so I don’t want to take it against it but at the moment it’s quite something. Cat and Valka are great; can’t wait to see more.

Apart from the four misdirecting false-starts, it’s enjoyable. I see the potential in the series, but the prose and the pacing are a bit rough; the slow worldbuilding and the atmosphere I like though. From what I understand this was his debut novel so it makes sense

Some of the current-day references might be pushing it a bit and the story setup might be a bit generic but the world seems interesting and the conflict looks good so far