I am not smart. I was shocked that this rural fairytale world had cities. It was even in the title. So that really threw me, which is why I suspect TBFSFTCOS is my least favorite of the bunch, but I still enjoyed it a lot, especially as the action moves outside the city and back into creepy wilderness with man-eating crazy breathing monsters. Just took me a while to get into it.

I liked the way the “never meet your heroes” theme was portrayed, although the point was driven home a bit too gut wrenchingly for my personal taste I thought it was well done. The other books seemed more man vs monsters, the distinction is less clear here. Not to the say that so far the characters were morally upstanding citizens, just that the grey looks darker here.

I really dig the monster/gods in this one. They’re on a new level of alien creepiness, with ashen faces and many toothy mouths, they’re also very pissed, and with good reason. The setting is based on central or south American about 100 years or so after the Spanish colonization.

TBFSFTCOS has 3 point of view characters, Arturo, the naive young man setting out to become a hero, Yizel, the fallen Shaven, and Crazy Racoon, the veteran Bravadori, the masked warriors meant to protect the people against the bandits and monsters of the Wildlands. I found Arturo to be the relatable one, Yizel the interesting one and Crazy Racoon the one I’d give a good thrashing too.

The ending was some avalanche roller coaster shit. Again keeping me up past my bedtime cause I couldn’t put it down. It had action, with the day going from lost to won, to lost to won to lost to .. so on, very intense, it had emotions all over the place with backstories coming to light, feelings being brought up, rooftops being jumped from. It was very wow.