The Carnival of Ash Book Review

The Carnival of Ash was gifted to me in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Book: The Carnival of Ash
Author: Tom Beckerlegge
Genre: SFF

Synopsis

Cadenza is the City of Words, a city run by poets, its skyline dominated by the steepled towers of its libraries, its heart beating to the stamp and thrum of the printing presses in the Printing Quarter.

Carlo Mazzoni, a young wordsmith arrives at the city gates intent on making his name as the bells ring out with the news of the death of the city’s poet-leader. Instead, he finds himself embroiled with the intrigues of a city in turmoil, the looming prospect of war with their rival Venice ever-present. A war that threatens not only to destroy Cadenza but remove it from history altogether…

Content warnings: suicidal ideation, gore, violence, sexual violence, torture, rape, blood, murder and misogyny.

My Thoughts

Right from the beginning I was swept into this story with its beautiful lyrical writing but it turned very dark very early on which shocked me.

From the synopsis I thought this was going to be a fantastical magical story exploring the love of words but this moves into really dark territory very very quickly.

Each “chapter” of this story follows someone else’s perspective as they are going on about their own lives. Moving between the perspectives was very interesting as we learned more about the city and this world.

I have had a hard time reading and reviewing this book. For a book I thought was going to be magical and fantastical which then turned very dark and gruesome I struggled to get through it.

The male gaze in this story was so uncomfortable to read as a female myself. Women were described and explained as delicate, breakable, a body to be used and so much more which made me very uncomfortable as a reader.

This was an interesting novel I had some likes and some dislikes while reading this story but not every story will be for everyone.