The Spear Cuts Through Water: A Novel

This one is going to be hard for me to talk about, because if I use the kind of language I WANT to use for it, I would risk sounding like some sort of hype-machine loony. Every once in a while you connect with something on a level that feels so personal, so intimate, that it's as if the creator could see into your mind and made something just for you. That is how I felt when I finished this book. To me, it is a masterpiece: I understand if it is not that for you. This is a dreamlike, borderline fairytale work about empire, and struggle, and history, and divinity, and yet it is also a surprisingly intimate story about love, and loss, and the weight and repercussions of one's choices and actions, and it is also a somewhat classically structured fantasy tale about a quest. The ways in which all of these intertwine on the page is handled so deftly that I was left in something like awe by the end of it. At a purely technical level, Jimenez has crafted something extraordinary here, I think. The narrative shifts between first, second, and third-person perspectives (sometimes all in a single paragraph!) and yet he manages to make it work - even to sing. There will be some uncertainty and confusion in the first few pages, but trust in the author and let it wrap itself around you, and it will become clear what is happening. What a treasure, as a reader, to experience something that isn't merely good, isn't just great, but leaves you speechless. The Spear Cuts Through Water was that kind of experience, for me. Truly a masterpiece.

Difficult for some of us due to the genre. But some loved it because of the genre. The writing was beautiful and the prose very flowery. The English majors of the group found much value in it.

I could not have predicted what I was in for when I read this book. I picked it up wanting to read an MLM fantasy, and that’s what I got and more. I loved the setting and the magic, I imagined it like modern day Georgia. It was a little tricky following the multiple perspectives, a story within a story within a story, but it flowed once I got an understanding of who the characters were. I think the author added TOO many perspectives, like the random background characters chiming in with their thoughts could’ve been toned down since readers are already trying to follow 3 storylines. But I did like how the reader was essentially a character themselves in the story, I don’t see narration like that often. I also loved the slow burn between the two main characters. I would definitely read another book by this author.

Wow this was really unique! The middle felt really long, but i otherwise really enjoy this (love) story.
And i cried at a few different scenes at the end :')

★★★★★