A review by toggle_fow
The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson

adventurous emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This book has flabbergasted me in a REALLY GOOD way.

Okay, obligatory general info before we get into specifics:

This story is one of survival, intrigue, and deceit. Our main character is Neema, a brilliant but awkward and unconfident Raven Scholar. She is helping to plan the ritual contest that will decide the next emperor when one of the contenders for the throne turns up murdered. Right away, Neema's life is turned upside-down. The palace is full of old friends and old enemies, but is there anyone she can really trust?

The worldbuilding is founded on the Eight, divine beings in the guise of animals among which each person, when they reach adulthood, chooses a guardian to follow. The different sects of these guardians have different traditions, powers and skills, and worldviews. I've seen this sort of religious/magic system done before in other books, and I've never been that impressed with it until now.

For this book we're looking at part murder mystery, full of deadly court intrigue. Part "ritual games for extremely high stakes" adventure. Part epic fantasy of gods, monsters, and ambition.

All right, now let's get into it:

So, this book does a lot of things on the fiction author's no-no list, to the extent that when I started the book I suspected I might end up DNFing it. However, it somehow ends up PULLING THEM ALL OFF in a way that is AWESOME. How??? We just don't know. One more data point in favor of the principal that you can do anything in fiction no matter how weird or ill-advised as long as you're good at it. Execution is everything.

  • Info dumps and flashbacks. At the beginning especially there are a lot of long sections where the POV character will interrupt their own thoughts to explain some point of worldbuilding, or jump back to an extended long-ago memory. This is quite common, but the extent to which it was happening annoyed me at first.

  • LONG PROLOGUE. I went into this book relatively blind, and the prologue was so long (though high-stakes and interesting) that I genuinely didn't even realize it was a prologue. Then we finally met Neema (at the 7% mark - I went back to check) and I was kind of miffed and taken aback. What about the people I had already spent 7% of the book getting invested in?!?

  • Wishy-washy point of view. There are several POVs in the book, which is not unusual. However, the way that the POV slides back and forth nebulously, sometimes more than once in a single scene, is usually either a) a facet of third person omniscient perspective OR b) the habit of an amateur, novice writer. This book is neither. It struck me as strange at first, but wasn't jarring or distracting the way it is when it's done due to inexperience. Then, midway through the book, it starts to make sense as the in-world REASON for this semi-omniscience begins to show itself...

  •  Similar to the previous point, sprinkled generously through the book are some rhetorical flourishes that address the reader. "Let us wing our way to the Raven Palace" type of fourth-wall breaking narration that would be much more common in literature from the 1800s. At first this struck me as odd and not particularly welcome, but again, like the POV-shifting, it becomes much more natural and even necessary as you continue reading.

It might seem like I just wrote four paragraphs of negative things, but the thing is, they're NOT negative. They should be! They almost always would be, in other books! But in The Raven Scholar, the info dumps don't grate. The long prologue is not only gripping but deeply necessary for the rest of the story. The unusual and counterintuitive stylistic choices strike your notice at first, but rapidly become part of the effortless, skillful weave of the story. The worldbuilding, which could be lackluster if handled differently, quickly starts to take on a life of its own.

The point is, this is CRAFT. I am deeply impressed by the skill displayed by Antonia Hodgson to pull all of this off so shockingly well.

And it's not only the writing choices. After I reached the point where the central murder happened, the story itself kept me absolutely GLUED to the turning pages. Neema is both sympathetic and unlikable, determined but fearful, and I couldn't help but root for her. Having a murder investigation and a multi-day deadly contest plotline going at the same time meant that there was never a chance to be bored. The intrigue and maneuver kept me guessing, and there were no less than three places in the book where a plot twist reveal had me yelling "WHAT" at my phone.

Several things that seemed badly characterized or questionable at first (Cain's disapproval of Neema's choice to write the exile order, Bersun's choice to make Ruko responsible for his sister's sentence) turned out to actually make perfect sense when more was revealed. The only thing I still don't quite believe is Benna's backstory. It seems unrealistic.

However, even so. I think this book is excellent, and you should read it. It's something fresh and new, and it's done very well. Don't expect the ending to tie everything up neatly. It was satisfying and I believed it, but now the stage is set for a massive conflict in the next installments. You can bet I will be reading them as soon as humanly possible.