The Wolf of Oren-Yaro by K.S. Villoso

 

This was a frustrating read because it was really good in some ways, but it ended up falling just short of being truly good... for me. First, I think the author has an amazing talent and building out and developing her world. I loved the Filipinx culture inspo and how the heroine really did feel like someone who could be an insecure warlord queen who barely has her nation in check, let alone her feelings. I saw some people criticizing her for being foolish in love but COME ON. Just because a girl's got a sword and a fondness for cutting off heads, that doesn't mean that she doesn't have a heart. In fact, given all the stresses in her life, I feel like it would make double sense that she would be painfully aware of the void in her life that her husband's absence left. Especially since he abandoned her with their kid. And he was her FIRST.

Taliyen was a complex heroine and I loved her for it, and her journey started off amazing, as she goes to a stand-in for China to meet with her husband after a five-year absence to confront him and find out the future of their nation. After that it becomes a tragic-comedy, with Tali ending up in perilous situation after perilous situation, in a way that really felt delightfully like an old skool bodice-ripper. Especially the part with Yuebek and the part where she's tricked into being a bordello's latest acquisition.

Where this book fell short for me is that it's just TOO LONG. When a book is 500 or more pages, I start thinking, "Did this actually need to be 500 pages?" and usually the answer is no. I see that this started out as self-published and I wondered how much editing was applied to the book when it was picked up to be published mainstream, because I think about one hundred or at least fifty pages probably could have been shaved off, especially the last quarter of the book, where it started to go all dry geopolitics and became less adventure-focused like it was in the beginning, where even though there was a LOT to take in, it was less cerebral and more immersive, which I liked.

I think this author has a lot of talent and I liked most of the book. In some ways, her style actually reminds me a lot of T. Kingfisher because she's a little rambly and her book is more character-driven in focus than a lot of contemporary fantasy novels. I would read more from her but I'm hesitant to continue this series. I'll definitely be thinking about Queen Tali for a while, though.

2.5 out of 5 stars