Book Review: The House of Binding Thorns by Aliette de Bodard
I received a review copy from the publisher. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own.
The House of Binding Thorns by Aliette de Bodard
Mogsy’s Rating: 2.5 of 5 stars
Genre: Fantasy
Series: Book 2 of Dominion of the Fallen
Publisher: Ace (April 4, 2017)
Length: 416 pages
Author Information: Website | Twitter
Ultimately, my second foray into the Dominion of the Fallen did not turn out the way I’d hoped, though to be fair, I did have a lot riding on this sequel. It’s true that the first book left me with mixed feelings, but I found the premise intriguing enough that I wanted to see where things would lead, and maybe give this series a another chance to sweep me off my feet. Regrettably, this did not quite happen—despite The House of Binding Thorns being a pretty decent follow-up. At the end of the day though, I simply found myself tripping over a lot of same hurdles as book one.
First of all, in spite of the suggestions that this can be read as a standalone, I would highly recommend against it. Definitely read The House of Shattered Wings first if you can; you will find the background information absolutely indispensable, especially in anchoring you to the setting. In the aftermath of the war between angels, the proud city of Paris is now only a ghost of what it once was, and the Fallen are now divided in several houses all vying for power among the crumbling ruins. Most of the characters here were originally introduced in the first book, including Madeleine, an alchemist suffering from an addiction to angel essence. Upon her return to House Hawthorn, their leader Asmodeus mercilessly purges that addiction from her, with the intention of sending her on a diplomatic mission to the dragon kingdom under the Seine.
Meanwhile, Philippe is also back, now mourning the loss of Isabelle, the fallen angel with whom he had shared a mental link. While searching for a way to resurrect her, he comes across Berith, another Fallen who claims to be Asmodeus’ sister. The exiled angel is currently keeping a low profile, hiding herself and her pregnant human lover Françoise from the chaos and poison of the clashing Houses. However, due to their familial connections, Berith may not be as well hidden from Asmodeus as she has led Françoise to believe, and in the escalating conflict between all the factions involved, it is becoming increasingly clear that no one will be safe from the violence.
Right away, I was struck by how little I remembered from the first book. I had to go back to my review of The House of Shattered Wings to remind myself who was who, and in doing so, I also noticed what I had written about the characters and how I’d struggled to engage with any of them. Unfortunately, this is a problem that persists; there are too many characters and not enough personality between them to justify so many, and the result is just a jumble of names and descriptions that I tried to but could not connect with on a deeper, emotional level. For this simple reason alone, the rest of the book fell apart for me, even though I admit from a technical standpoint, The House of Binding Thorns is probably a better book than its predecessor. However, I need to care about the characters to care about the story; without that foundation, it’s hard to get on board with everything else.
Furthermore, though I was impressed with the allegorical themes of post-colonialism, I’m not sure they came through well enough amidst all the noise. Paradoxically, the plot felt simultaneously too complicated and too superficial, overly simplistic. At times, The House of Binding Thorns felt very much like a “middle book”, in the sense that it is neither here nor there, striving to expand the story and characters beyond the first novel but ultimately falling short of achieving the desired result. Again, all the ingredients seem to be there—the history, mythology, philosophical discourse and world-building, etc.—and in many cases they even surpass their scope from the first book, but for the reasons I touched upon above, the story simply failed to “speak” to me.
In the end, I have a feeling that this might just be another classic case of “Good book, but not for me”. Still, despite not winning me over, I’m glad I gave this series another shot. Chances are I’ll probably sit out for the third book of Dominion of the Fallen, but I’m definitely not closing any doors to trying more of Aliette de Bodard’s other work in the future.
More on The BiblioSanctum:
Review of The House of Shattered Wings (Book 1)
The BiblioSanctum 
Eh, too bad, sometimes those second chances just do not work
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Unfortunately, that’s true! But at least I tried 🙂
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You confirm the suspicions I had after reading the first book…
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I thought the first book was okay, but sadly this one did not significantly improve on the issues I had with it. Not being able to connect with the characters was what killed it for me, unfortunately.
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Ah yes I was really mixed by book 1 so if it’s like that for book 2, I won’t try it either
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Yeah, I was really mixed for book 1! Thought I’d give this a shot, to see if it was worth continuing. Sad it didn’t work out.
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I haven’t started this series, but I am curious. After reading this review though it’s hard to get excited about a 2 1/2 star rating. I just keep thinking there are so many books I WANT to read, I need to make some hard choices about what I read since I’m just not a fast reader.
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You never know, it might work for you 🙂 And for what it’s worth, it seems like I am in the minority with my feelings for this one, with most people on GR liking the sequel more than the first book!
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De Bodard is one of the authors I wanted to sample, but your review of the first book in this series (together with a few disappointed comments I gathered online) somewhat cooled my enthusiasm. It’s a pity that there is so little to sink one’s teeth into in this story, that on the surface looks quite intriguing, and I think that your sentence about “too many characters and too little personality between them” did not encourage me to try this series… Thanks for sharing! 🙂
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She’s a great writer, and I’ve heard that her short stories are really good! One of these days I’d like to try some. Maybe she’s just learning to balance story and character development when it comes to writing longer novels.
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I didn’t like the first book, I found it dry and “trying too hard” to be good however, I absolutely recommend De Bodard short fiction, right now I have Lullaby published by Tor.com in mind which I found very good ^^
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I didn’t love the first book either and sadly book two did not improve things for me. I do want to try her short fiction though, I’ve heard some of it is really good, so thanks for the rec!
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Sorry this one didn’t alleviate your issues with the series. I recall your review of the first book and had hoped the author would pull everything together in this installment. 😦
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I had hoped as well. Ah well, you win some you lose some 🙂
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Oh deaaar. I think I enjoyed the first book more than you did, but still. Hmmm.
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You should still give this one a try, especially if you enjoyed the first book! Like I said, I seem to be an anomaly, most others on GR enjoyed this as much if not even more than book one!
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When I’m not totally convinced by a first book in a series I rarely venture to the second for these exact reasons, unless I’ve already bought it. I sometimes try it then. It’s a pity it didn’t work out for you. Really enjoyed the review though.
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Thanks! I wish it had worked better for me as well, but I’m glad I gave it a second chance to see it for myself.
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Well I might not be reading the sequel after all, I didn’t like the first book eventhough the premise was everything I wanted. I was questiooning whether or not I should continue on but reading your review reminded me I didn’t enjoy the first book in the first place!
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I gave book one a 3.5 of 5 stars, which was why I was really torn. At that rating I usually give a series a second chance, so I picked up book two. Ah well, it didn’t work out, but hey you win some you lose some 🙂
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That’s a shame – I read quite a few negative reviews for book 1 but I thought I’d see how the second book worked out. This doesn’t really encourage me to give the series a go -at the end of the day there just isn’t enough time to read everything but if this was a glowing review I’d be more tempted to bump it up the list. As it is, even though I do own a copy of the first it’s more likely to be buried much lower on the tbr.
Lynn 😀
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I know what you mean. It does seem like those who loved the first book also loved this one as much if not more though, so if you ever get the chance to try the series, who knows it might work out! 🙂
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