You know that feeling when a book could have been incredible because the concept and setting were amazing, but the quality, the plot, or the characters weren’t quite there? That’s how I felt about Starving Saints. What I liked I loved the setting and concept of this- medieval castle under siege, sudden appearance of their distant saints, and the creeping descent into madness. The horror elements were both perfectly well timed and incredibly unsettling. The writing style seemed to shift between hazy, claustrophobic, fever-dream-esque and sudden moments of clarity, horror, and quick thought. This was a brilliant choice mirroring the disconnect between their usual starving and muddled state and the sudden burst of adrenaline and focus in dangerous situations. The characters of the saints though, from what little we saw were even better than those of our main characters. They felt unworldly, ruthless, hungry, cunning and cut-throat. Each of them was a spectacular villain, even the ones we didn’t see much of felt like they had a much wider role in the castle. Phosyne’s arch was the best written out of all of them, but I still wasn’t super invested. Treila’a character was engaging from the beginning, and her continued exploits honestly carried me through. While Voyne’s struggles with commands were interesting in theory, I never really felt like they carried through. Regardless, each of their characters was solid and definitely fit the setting.
What I didn’t like Unfortunately, although the characters were somewhat engaging, they lacked real meat necessary for me to get fully invested in them. In order for Treila and Voyne’s character arches to work out, I felt like we needed to go deeper into their personalities and backstories. For Voyne in particular, there was a lack of justification for her feelings after her growth. Some of the choices the characters made felt completely driven by only what was necessary for the plot, not what the characters would actually do, which further widened the disconnect between us and the characters. The pacing also seemed to be all over the place. At times it dragged, and then it would suddenly pick up again only to change perspectives at a cliff hanger and completely wreck any tension that had been built up. I do like that we get all of their perspectives, but the perspective changes happened at inopportune times. Overview The Starving Saints has an excellent concept and set up but disappointingly failed to follow through on the execution. The horror elements were super well done though, and I’d definitely try Starling again in the future. Would I recommend? I wouldn’t not recommend it, a lot of people really liked this, and I thought it was fine. The quality of the characters wasn’t really there though and the pacing felt off, but I do think it’s worth a shot, if you like weird medieval horror.

Sorry but “six foot three frame” immediately on page one took me out. There’s so much telling and no sense of place. It just feels so frenetic with no space to breathe, which is what I had hoped for from this. At least it was a library book.