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dogearedbooks's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
I loved this so much. Going to be so hard for another book to beat this as my fave of the year. It is queer! Has all my fave things and I loved everyone.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Blood, and Murder
Moderate: War
Minor: Drug use
courtsport3000's review against another edition
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
This is one of those situations where I start wondering if I read a different book than everyone else did. Or if I just missed out on something that everyone else caught onto within the story. Because I was so confident that I was going to love this read. SO confident. But I just ended up reading to finish rather than out of any degree of interest or enjoyment.
The one thing I really loved without fail was the worldbuilding. I constantly wanted to know more about the alterations, the titans, the class system. There was so much to take in and I couldn't get enough of it.
I was also especially interested in our main character, Din. He's quirky and likeable and just about the only character that felt fully fleshed out. We got peeks into his romantic life, his relationships with his family, his motivations concerning his career - he's a character that's easy to feel close to. Unfortunately, he was pretty much the only one I really cared about.
Everything else about the book just felt like background noise. Like the kind of story that keeps the reader at a distance to enhance the mystery, but instead just prevents becoming fully invested. It's not that I disliked the other characters or the story itself - I just didn't care at all. I didn't feel strongly one way or another. I didn't feel close to any of the characters. I wasn't especially engaged in the mystery element. I wasn't captivated by the Sherlockish revelations that kept enlightening us while we trailed along one step behind.
There's not much more to say. Tons of early reviewers loved this book and I hope most readers will. I wish I had been one of them because this felt right up my alley until suddenly it wasn't.
Special thanks to Del Rey for an ARC in exchange for review.
The one thing I really loved without fail was the worldbuilding. I constantly wanted to know more about the alterations, the titans, the class system. There was so much to take in and I couldn't get enough of it.
I was also especially interested in our main character, Din. He's quirky and likeable and just about the only character that felt fully fleshed out. We got peeks into his romantic life, his relationships with his family, his motivations concerning his career - he's a character that's easy to feel close to. Unfortunately, he was pretty much the only one I really cared about.
Everything else about the book just felt like background noise. Like the kind of story that keeps the reader at a distance to enhance the mystery, but instead just prevents becoming fully invested. It's not that I disliked the other characters or the story itself - I just didn't care at all. I didn't feel strongly one way or another. I didn't feel close to any of the characters. I wasn't especially engaged in the mystery element. I wasn't captivated by the Sherlockish revelations that kept enlightening us while we trailed along one step behind.
There's not much more to say. Tons of early reviewers loved this book and I hope most readers will. I wish I had been one of them because this felt right up my alley until suddenly it wasn't.
Special thanks to Del Rey for an ARC in exchange for review.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Death of parent, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Physical abuse
sarrie's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
TL;DR: Such a slow build but I really think it was worth it. A Holmesian mystery with lots of fantasy and plant magic/science!
The Tainted Cup is not the book for people who get weirded out by plants and mushrooms. I’ll just open up with that one. The whole premise of the mystery here is that a government official is murdered by means of a giant plant erupting from his body and devouring it whole. And that isn’t the only time it happens.
Our primary PoV is Din, a newly assigned assistant to a quirky and exiled investigator named Ana. Din Encodes memories, recalling them with a smell assigned to each memory. This means he can recall with exact precision the way something looks, feels, tastes, smells, etc at a prompt. Ana uses Din to review crimes and she solves them (think Sherlock and Watson with a much more involved Watson). Ana herself is odd, insisting on living mostly blindfolded though she’s not blind, and with augments that allow her to read ink through her fingertips.
These two odd characters begin small, investigating the murder of a visiting government official and end up moving to a military border town. This border town keeps out the leviathans that come from the ocean, a fascinating and deeply unnerving backdrop to even more gruesome plant deaths.
This was a slow mystery, building in tension and parts till an INTENSE ending. I genuinely had the thought a few times ‘Perhaps I should DNF’ but I kept going and it was so worth that build. If you don’t mind a slower start, I can’t recommend this enough.
5 out of 5 giant air conditioning mushrooms
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror and Murder
Moderate: Violence and Classism
devynreadsnovels's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Chronic illness, Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Minor: Addiction, Drug use, Sexual content, and Alcohol
mbomersheim's review against another edition
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
ARC Review: What an interesting start to the year!
The Tainted Cup is the first book in the new series by Robert Jackson Bennett, Shadow of the Leviathan. The story follows Kol, an assistant investigator with a perfect memory, and Ana, an investigator for the government, as the two of them are tasked to solve a murder via the spontaneous growth of a plant from the body of another government official, and things turn out to be much more complex than they initially seemed.
I don’t want to say much more about the plot because of fear of spoilers, but what I will say is that this book gives Sherlock Holmes vibes. The writing is very methodical and there are some jumps in logic that I didn’t quite see coming but make sense in retrospect. Some of the descriptions toward the end of the book get a bit gruesome, which I thought contrasted the rest of the writing a bit, but it was nothing crazy. I will say, this book took me a hot minute to get into; there is so much world-building toward the beginning that I spent the first third of the book always slightly confused, but once I began getting it, the story flowed better and captured my attention more. Ultimately, I don’t think this book was really for me, but that doesn’t mean it’s not for someone else, rather there were things I tend to look for more in my reading (like more character relationships) that weren’t there. I think the plot left off in a good place for the rest of the series to continue.
This ARC was received courtesy of NetGalley and will be published on February 6, 2024.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Violence, and Murder
Moderate: War
Minor: Ableism, Medical trauma, and Death of parent
torturedreadersdept's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Violence, Blood, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Ableism
Minor: Stalking and Sexual harassment
booksthatburn's review against another edition
*I received a free review copy in exchange for an honest review of this book.
This follows the trend of the witty, arbitrarily restricted genius of several recent popular iterations of Sherlock Holmes, but with a danger that feels at once too remote and too specific to make a lot of sense to me. I can tell it's aiming for a thing that I don't like, and so I'm not going to finish it. I like banter, I like witty dialogue, but I think I'm finally at a point in my life where I don't like someone explaining to me how smart they are with information I literally had no access to until this moment. The biggest factor in this DNF is I'd started to feel like I wasn't allowed to finish other books until I struggled through this one, and I don't like books that make me feel like I can't or shouldn't read other books. I'm definitely bothered by one character's personality quirk of wearing a blindfold at all times, and treating a refusal to leave her home as an affectation that exists to annoy other people. The narrative calls attention to it but refuses to explain. I don't enjoy being told repeatedly that I don't need to know something, or at least don't get to have it revealed at this time. It doesn't feel mysterious or interesting, just irritating and petty.
This follows the trend of the witty, arbitrarily restricted genius of several recent popular iterations of Sherlock Holmes, but with a danger that feels at once too remote and too specific to make a lot of sense to me. I can tell it's aiming for a thing that I don't like, and so I'm not going to finish it. I like banter, I like witty dialogue, but I think I'm finally at a point in my life where I don't like someone explaining to me how smart they are with information I literally had no access to until this moment. The biggest factor in this DNF is I'd started to feel like I wasn't allowed to finish other books until I struggled through this one, and I don't like books that make me feel like I can't or shouldn't read other books. I'm definitely bothered by one character's personality quirk of wearing a blindfold at all times, and treating a refusal to leave her home as an affectation that exists to annoy other people. The narrative calls attention to it but refuses to explain. I don't enjoy being told repeatedly that I don't need to know something, or at least don't get to have it revealed at this time. It doesn't feel mysterious or interesting, just irritating and petty.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Blood, Vomit, Murder, and Classism
Minor: Torture, Excrement, and Sexual harassment
eaug's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I received this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
This is a book that I went in knowing nothing about it but the title and the description, and I was wowed. This is an intricately designed murder mystery with political intrigue in a fantasy setting that didn’t require a massive info dump to piece together this new world and its rules and language. I throughly enjoyed it and with the ending implying a sequel I will definitely be seeking it out.
As for the storyline, we follow Din, a detective’s assistant (Watson) who was changed and given the ability to remember everything he hears, sees and touches and is able to info dump that information to the detective who is a regular Sherlock. In this they investigate the murder of engineers, who maintain a wall from the leviathans (gross giants), and discover death, corruption, and conspiracies against the empire.
In this book you will find: LGBTQA+ characters, graphic death scenes, gay romance that appears at the end of the book, sherlockian style observations, altered people, description of corpses, fantasy plants, poisons, political intrigue, corruption and a whole lot more.
This is a book that I went in knowing nothing about it but the title and the description, and I was wowed. This is an intricately designed murder mystery with political intrigue in a fantasy setting that didn’t require a massive info dump to piece together this new world and its rules and language. I throughly enjoyed it and with the ending implying a sequel I will definitely be seeking it out.
As for the storyline, we follow Din, a detective’s assistant (Watson) who was changed and given the ability to remember everything he hears, sees and touches and is able to info dump that information to the detective who is a regular Sherlock. In this they investigate the murder of engineers, who maintain a wall from the leviathans (gross giants), and discover death, corruption, and conspiracies against the empire.
In this book you will find: LGBTQA+ characters, graphic death scenes, gay romance that appears at the end of the book, sherlockian style observations, altered people, description of corpses, fantasy plants, poisons, political intrigue, corruption and a whole lot more.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Murder
Minor: Bullying
lastblossom's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
tl;dr
Come for the cool worldbuilding, stay for the twisty mystery.
Thoughts
Is this book really 432 pages long? Because I raced through it in a day, and it felt like it moved so quickly! I've always been impressed with RJB's world building, but this one might be my favorite yet. What do we call a world where plants provide light, vines are cultivated to be deadly security systems, the rich can afford large mushrooms that regulate the air temperature, and the murder weapon is a tree? Ugh, I love it. There are also strong notes of the usual "big monsters threaten humanity" suspects - Pacific Rim, Kaiju No. 8, and most evidently Attack on Titan, but this story chooses to move the first responders into the background and spend more time on infrastructure folks and a detective/assistant pair.
And what a stunning pair they are. Fans of the eccentric detective+earnest put-upon assistant, get ready to enjoy yourselves. Ana is a genius in all rights, but never in too much of a magical way that it seems she arrived at her conclusions unfairly. The clues are always available, and I did manage to pick out a couple reveals before they were dropped. As our POV character, Din is easily my favorite - his dedication to justice makes him very easy to cheer for, and I appreciated that he wasn't portrayed as completely brainless.
Despite all the giant monsters attacking in the background, this is a mystery first and foremost, and I appreciate that the narrative commits to this. I suspect that the mystery and the background plot will eventually merge in future books, but for now, I was happy just to read a really solid mystery with some great twists, and a really cool detective.
Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for an advance copy. All thoughts in this review are my own
Come for the cool worldbuilding, stay for the twisty mystery.
Thoughts
Is this book really 432 pages long? Because I raced through it in a day, and it felt like it moved so quickly! I've always been impressed with RJB's world building, but this one might be my favorite yet. What do we call a world where plants provide light, vines are cultivated to be deadly security systems, the rich can afford large mushrooms that regulate the air temperature, and the murder weapon is a tree? Ugh, I love it. There are also strong notes of the usual "big monsters threaten humanity" suspects - Pacific Rim, Kaiju No. 8, and most evidently Attack on Titan, but this story chooses to move the first responders into the background and spend more time on infrastructure folks and a detective/assistant pair.
And what a stunning pair they are. Fans of the eccentric detective+earnest put-upon assistant, get ready to enjoy yourselves. Ana is a genius in all rights, but never in too much of a magical way that it seems she arrived at her conclusions unfairly. The clues are always available, and I did manage to pick out a couple reveals before they were dropped. As our POV character, Din is easily my favorite - his dedication to justice makes him very easy to cheer for, and I appreciated that he wasn't portrayed as completely brainless.
Despite all the giant monsters attacking in the background, this is a mystery first and foremost, and I appreciate that the narrative commits to this. I suspect that the mystery and the background plot will eventually merge in future books, but for now, I was happy just to read a really solid mystery with some great twists, and a really cool detective.
Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for an advance copy. All thoughts in this review are my own
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror and Classism
Moderate: Bullying, Cursing, Death, Genocide, Violence, Blood, Grief, and Murder
Minor: Ableism