The Goblin Emperor

I spent most of my time reading this book in a state of entirely uncomprehending confusion. I admire Addison's commitment to the detail in the world she's built here. This book is awash in conventions of language, title, grammar, grammatical gender, and in-world history. But it absolutely hurls you into the deep end of all of that with little to no hand-holding. On the one hand, that goes some way toward avoiding too many long and tedious expository info-dumps about those worldbuilding details; on the other hand, it left me frequently feeling like I was reading a book written in a language that I don't speak. I mean, the first eight pages of the book consist of a two-page crash course in grammar and a six-page glossary of names, places, and titles. I highly suggest you keep your thumb here: you'll need to flip back to it forty or fifty times a chapter if you want to track all the pieces. The story around all of that worldbuilding has a lot of charm to it. This book is often described as "warm", and I think that's accurate. In a nutshell: 18-year old Maia is flung into becoming Emperor with no real preparation whatsoever, and has to learn the job, the court/politics, and the social conventions on the fly, while trying not to let his basic decency either erode entirely or be too much of a liability. There's less of a rigidly structured and contained plot here than a sort of "slice of life" diary of how all of that goes for him. Maia is a magnificent character. Addison writes him with such skill and tenderness that it's hard not to love the kid. I especially loved how nuanced and multifaceted he was. I find that sometimes, when characters are described as "warm" or "kind" in a book that also gets hit with the "cozy" epithet, they end up being wholly one-dimensional. Maia has depth and contains multitudes: he is patient to a point but can be short-tempered at times; he trusts easily but bears grudges; he loves and hates; he is curious but shy; he is earnest but quick to retreat into himself if he feels ashamed. He comes across, in short, like a person, and it is a joy and a pleasure to get to spend time inside his head as his life is upended so completely and so abruptly. All of which leaves this book as a real mixed bag, for me. I think if the worldbuilding had been about 50% less impenetrable, I would adore this book. As it is, it kept me at arm's length a bit too much to say I loved it. (crossposted from my Storygraph review)

A masterpiece.

No action here. The main character is a reactive person. Not sure why the author felt that she needed to have goblins and elves in this story. Also the world building was unnecessary.

A very good book with a great mc which I very greatly enjoyed reading from. With his trying to do good and stick to his beliefs even when that is not the norm. With his grief and rage always there but never taking control of him. A complex character that had layers who I wanted to succeed. The prose was probably one of the best I've read all year with words I need definitions for. The side characters where all right, with subtle world building that want bashing you over the head, but we learned as the mc learned. My major complaint at no fault to the book was the names in this book where hard to Rember and made me look back at the list of characters to find out who's who.

7.6/10

this was fine, not at all what i was expecting. it was just really dry politicking. like give me some blood or intrigue or something pls. it just wasn’t. very interesting. even the main character was flat? the side characters had more depth to them tbh. not even the world was very compelling. i’ll still give it three stars for the complexity.