pare to play their hand.

I really punished myself with this book. I’d heard so much about how you have to read it so carefully for detail that I began studying it like an academic text rather than reading for enjoyment, and it ended up taking me nearly a month to read. That...that just isn’t feasible in my world. I don’t have the attention span for it. Once I allowed myself to read it for enjoyment and acknowledge that I’m not going to catch everything the first time through AND THAT THAT’S OKAY, I began enjoying myself significantly more.

Do I want to read something light and fun now? Yes. Do I want to return to the world? I dunno. The fog of the first half of the book is currently hovering over my psyche. I need to remember that I need to be fair to myself and my style of reading, no matter what other people say.30:T4af,five stars.

confused and obsessed.

reading gardens of the moon is kind of like being thrown into a battlefield blindfolded and told to “figure it out.” no recap, no map, just vibes and violence. there are like 12 povs, half of them might be gods (or not?), and you’ll spend the first 100 pages wondering if you accidentally started in the middle of a trilogy. but once it clicks? it clicks. erikson builds a world so massive and layered, it makes other fantasy feel like light cosplay.

the dialogue is sharp and weirdly profound.

“when you can’t make it through the darkness, sometimes all you need is to be told it’s okay to stop trying” and then boom, the person who said it is crushed by a moon (probably)

confusing? yes. emotionally devastating? also yes. am i already halfway through book three? of course i am.

“the world is a coin, the coin is a lie, the lie is the truth, the truth is a trick, and the trick is the world” echo long after you’ve turned the page. erikson trusts his readers, he doesn’t overexplain, and that trust feels like an invitation to

Gardens of the Moon - Likewise Book Reviews

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