I was very excited about Into the Crooked Place because the blurb was giving me strong Six of Crows vibes. I guess they call this gangster fantasy these days? While parts of it does feel like SoC, overall the book missed the mark a little for me.
The world building was pretty good. Christo imbued the setting with seemingly sufficient grit. There's history. There's buskers peddling magic. The magic itself I struggled with a lot. It often felt like there weren't any strict rules, some of it felt "hand wavey" if you will, which I occasionally struggled with. Wesley "summons" charms from his skin? There wasn't a lot of explanation about where the charms come from or how they get their specific powers.
Another thing I struggled with, is it's explained initially there is no new magic, so anything the buskers sell is somehow recycled or a trick. But where was it recycled from? Is there that much illicit magic laying around that 50-100 buskers in several different cities can afford to sell many of these charms and potions every night? I felt like I was just supposed to take all this at face value.
The world building was pretty good. Christo imbued the setting with seemingly sufficient grit. There's history. There's buskers peddling magic. The magic itself I struggled with a lot. It often felt like there weren't any strict rules, some of it felt "hand wavey" if you will, which I occasionally struggled with. Wesley "summons" charms from his skin? There wasn't a lot of explanation about where the charms come from or how they get their specific powers.
Another thing I struggled with, is it's explained initially there is no new magic, so anything the buskers sell is somehow recycled or a trick. But where was it recycled from? Is there that much illicit magic laying around that 50-100 buskers in several different cities can afford to sell many of these charms and potions every night? I felt like I was just supposed to take all this at face value.