Review: Godsgrave

Godsgrave by Jay Kristoff
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Gentlefriends, it's now been exactly a year since I read and reviewed Nevernight, so I now return with my review of Godsgrave. Since I read the first book, it's been called out for its highly unflattering portrayal of the Maori-coded Dweymeri people, as well as Mister Kristoff's waffling on whether or not the Dweymeri are meant to represent the Maori to begin with (the original, #ownvoices review is no longer available from what I've heard, having been taken down due to harassment.) That said, though, it appears that even in the limited time Kristoff would have had between the time of that review going public and the time he finished writing Godsgrave, he did take some steps to give the Dweymeri a better portrayal, making them less offensive (and less prone to obscene dialogue), and also showing Mia calling out an in-universe rando for anti-Dweymeri comments. Perhaps not enough to appease some of those who've written off Kristoff as yet another problematic white dudebro (to the point where I've seen many boycotting the Illuminae Files), but it's better than if he'd doubled down on the in-universe racism. So while this series is still one of the grittiest and darkest pieces in fantasy, at least Kristoff is focusing instead on more universal darkness that scares pretty much everyone.

And that darkness...yeah, it'll have you going "what the 'byss?" pretty damn often while you read this book. Just like Nevernight, this book is loaded for bear with overwrought writing, hilarious and overlong footnotes that prove more entertaining at times than the actual book itself (seriously, give me an entire book of Kristoff's footnotes, I'd give it ten stars out of five!), blood and guts galore (that goddamn retchwyrm!), swears by the names of various gods and their genitals (and it never fails to amuse me that Aa has his name in common with a subtype of lava, so every time someone says "Aa's burning cock" - do NOT attempt a drinking game based on Mister Kristoff's swears, gentlefriends - I keep thinking of a well-hung lava monster, lol), fantasy games of the kind that wouldn't be out of place in certain other sophomore stories from big-name new-adult fantasy series (A Gathering of Shadows and The Mime Order come especially to mind), interplays of sex and violence (including Mia showing herself to be bi, thus making her resemble Clarke Griffin in my mind as well as Octavia "Skairipa" Blake), Mister Gently being the best supernatural cat thing you've seen since the Coraline movie, and of course a fair few weapons-grade cliffhangers almost rivaling those of Glass Sword and Insurgent and Empire of Storms. Especially Empire of Storms. You'll know it when you see it.

Two books down in this trilogy, and now only one left. Bring it the 'byss on, Mister Kristoff. And until then, remember, I've named one of my own original villains after you for a reason.

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