A queer, genderswapping fantasy set in Italy and full of mafia types? This book was my dream. I waited and waited for it to come out. But once I got my hands on it...well, it may have partially fallen victim to high expectations (I mean, The Godfather meets The Left Hand of Darkness? Could you pick more iconic titles?), but I really was disappointed.
I don't often say this, but this book could have benefited from a solid 50 pages of additional exposition. The action isn't so much fast-paced as frenetic, tied together with coincidences and conveniences that stretch credulity. Capetta seems to have taken notes from the Stephen Moffat school of "if I say this fast enough, no one will have time to pick out the flaws." Worse, many of those flaws weren't necessarily fatal. They could have been resolved with only a little more exposition or context. Instead, Teo rushes from confrontation to catastrophe, leaving any emotional resonance to trail behind like toilet paper stuck to a shoe. I didn't really mourn deaths, get shocked by revelations, or have many emotions at all because of how wildly Captella swung from idea to idea.
I really wish this book had pushed more boundaries. The streghe can become wind, become rain, become flora and fauna and inanimate objects. And what is gender to a cloud? It could have been a really special meditation on gender and sexuality but it just felt so limited by its action/adventure scope instead.
I don't often say this, but this book could have benefited from a solid 50 pages of additional exposition. The action isn't so much fast-paced as frenetic, tied together with coincidences and conveniences that stretch credulity. Capetta seems to have taken notes from the Stephen Moffat school of "if I say this fast enough, no one will have time to pick out the flaws." Worse, many of those flaws weren't necessarily fatal. They could have been resolved with only a little more exposition or context. Instead, Teo rushes from confrontation to catastrophe, leaving any emotional resonance to trail behind like toilet paper stuck to a shoe. I didn't really mourn deaths, get shocked by revelations, or have many emotions at all because of how wildly Captella swung from idea to idea.
I really wish this book had pushed more boundaries. The streghe can become wind, become rain, become flora and fauna and inanimate objects. And what is gender to a cloud? It could have been a really special meditation on gender and sexuality but it just felt so limited by its action/adventure scope instead.