Okay, having said 'that part will not change', Book 4 and 5 kind of back off after the entire "culling the world" thing and...I am trying to work out how to put this.
If you read The Black Jewels, there's a huge tonal shift between Daughter of the Blood and Heir to the Darkness. She went from "holy fuck so much trauma and little girls being abused" to "and now found family! And teenage witches doing fun stuff! And Kindred!" She does this again, especially with Book Five, where it's like fanfic where everyone moves in together to be BFFs but in the Courtyard and Crispin's entire goddamn extended family shows up for drama and wait.
I do not deny Crispin's mother is a total cliche of elderly takes no nonsense kind of woman but I literally love that kind of character. And so she's--kind of adopted by the pack who all love her including Eliot, which I don't even care. So if you're into found family and EVIL FAMILY MAKING TROUBLE and big group parties to celebrate found family (not kidding), I'm saying, it's there.
Having said that: Lake Silence, you can read it without the last two books, there's a few background refs you might miss but there's no woobie bullshit and Vickie really is that great. I wish Bishop had written much more of this kind; the basic negotiating life among superbeings. It gets us that unexplored "normal people who aren't blood prophets or evil' category of interaction.
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If you read The Black Jewels, there's a huge tonal shift between Daughter of the Blood and Heir to the Darkness. She went from "holy fuck so much trauma and little girls being abused" to "and now found family! And teenage witches doing fun stuff! And Kindred!" She does this again, especially with Book Five, where it's like fanfic where everyone moves in together to be BFFs but in the Courtyard and Crispin's entire goddamn extended family shows up for drama and wait.
I do not deny Crispin's mother is a total cliche of elderly takes no nonsense kind of woman but I literally love that kind of character. And so she's--kind of adopted by the pack who all love her including Eliot, which I don't even care. So if you're into found family and EVIL FAMILY MAKING TROUBLE and big group parties to celebrate found family (not kidding), I'm saying, it's there.
Having said that: Lake Silence, you can read it without the last two books, there's a few background refs you might miss but there's no woobie bullshit and Vickie really is that great. I wish Bishop had written much more of this kind; the basic negotiating life among superbeings. It gets us that unexplored "normal people who aren't blood prophets or evil' category of interaction.