NWil’s Reviews > The Traitor Baru Cormorant > Status Update

You can feel the book barreling toward its climax as the tensions change and the stakes increase. I’m quite anxious but I want to take my time and manage what is clearly gonna be a bloody climax.

In the final third, I think I’m leaning toward a 5* read. Even with some issues with pacing and emotive connection, Dickinson is such a great storyteller and has told a great story.

I really love the theory of the Traitor’s Qualm.

Because we’re in Baru’s POV, it’s easy to forget that the Empire is still made up of expert military tacticians. If Baru and company need the midlands to take treatymont but their company is too hungry and sick to be merciful to Nayauru’s people, they’ll lose on both ends and arrive weakened when facing them. This is an expert plan.

Small battle dem don do friendly fire, kill one of their own guys. Na wa.

“Aurdwynn would never rise to match Falcrest until the feudal nobility could be torn down.
It would be a better land if only it could be ruled sensibly.”

She wants to be emperor.

The March was successful though. They showed strength across the duchies and hope to the commoners. And then they march to treatymont.

The death of Muire Lo is Baru’s first emotional moment. Seeing her racked with grief at her hand in bringing about his death by keeping him in the dark about the plot is great emotional connection with this character. But it does seem to have driven her to madness. To march in winter for aggrandizement to the peoples. Tain Hu, clearly shallow, joined her. Then sickness started killing the men in the march. Sigh.

Baru, as military tactician, has been extremely skilled & adept in understanding & predicting the actions of both the vessels of empire & the duchies in Aurdwynn. Where luck has not been on her side (the failed rebellion in Treatymont) she has managed to outsmart it with cunning & thinking. She truly is a savant. As we enter the final third of the book, I’d like to see her skills come up against a true barrier.

A lot has happened in this part in furtherance of the rebellion, culminating in Baru openly declaring herself as leader of the plot. But these activities have been neither emotionally engaging nor particularly action-filled. They were somewhat thrilling but they suffered from having too many characters with no personality. The failure of the rebellion to catch in Aurdwynn is likely the most significant event.

Okay. Baru is a comedian. Why she confessing her desire for women here?? Joker.