Brent's Reviews > Black Stone Heart

Repetitive and Navel Gazing

I enjoyed a lot of the aspects of this book. It leaned into its grimdark nature giving us a character who is pretty much a murderous asshole from page 1. I also enjoyed the magical elements in this world.

However, both of those things were kind of dragged down for me by the execution of the story. The narrative is overly repetitive where it feels like it hits the same story beats over and over and over again. Ditto for the characterization. I don't know how many times we had to get inner thoughts from the main character about his conflicted nature. My best estimate is approximately 10,000. I found myself saying "Dude you murdered someone in cold blood right at the beginning. You're a homicidal maniac. Just embrace it." Fletcher had a similar issue with how often we are told people at large dislike the main character because of his skin color. It feels like he belabors this point to absurdity.

Overall I would say I liked this more than I disliked it but just barely. The magic and world are pretty cool as well as the backstory we slowly learn, but the plot and characters seem pretty thin. Add in the writing tics that annoyed me and I don't think I'll be picking up book 2.