Search - Melusine (Doctrine of Labyrinths, Bk 1)

Good read, I enjoyed it. Mostly.

I liked the world she constructs. It's interesting, has lots of gritty low-lives, and fits together well. Mostly English with a smattering of novel-specific jargon. You'll figure it out.

No romance here. Main characters are one straight guy and one gay guy. The gay guy gets brutalized. I don't know if that's common in this type of fantasy with gay characters, but it can be tough to read. Gave me scary dreams too.

Loved the characters and looking forward to more in the same world.

After reading the entire book in one sitting, I found myself so captivated by the characters and the world they lived in that I bought the hardback just so I didn't have to wait for the sequel to come out in paperback. And I've never before done that. (I like all books of a series to match in style and height, which was why I needed this in hardback to match The Virtu in hardback.)

My favorite thing about the book is MILDMAY! I totally fell in love with him. He talks like a real person and I love how he's always referring to these random things as if you should know what he's talking about. It makes it seem like he's a real character from another world. But you do eventually figure out what he's talking about. There are so many details in this story that are very important and make it more complex and colorful. But definitely it's the strong characters that make the story as wonderful as it is.

I'm having a hard time rating this book because I enjoyed the world Monette created and her quirky use of language, but I was unprepared for the graphic scenes of physical and sexual abuse. (Charlaine Harris, the author of the Sookie Stackhouse books, recommended this on the Barnes and Noble website and Bon Temps it's not!). I'm interested enough to seek out book two, but hesitant because the blurb mentions the return of the worst abuser. Once the story reached the quest point I didn't want to put it down, but there was a fair amount of "yuck" to get through in the beginning before I reached that point. Can I be intrigued and ambivalent at the same time?