Red Sister

Red Sister by Mark Lawrence
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Nona has lived a hard life that was about to end with a noose around her neck when Abbess Glass rescued her and took her to her convent. Nona's crimes earned her enemies yet the convent offers Nona things she never really had before. Now Nona trains to hone her skills to become a Red Sister.

I've come to believe all writing has risks and no matter how good a book is to some others will dislike it. One risk is the choice of point of view characters. Using a single point of view character is akin to going all in when gambling. If the gambler wins with a single point of view character they win big, but if they lose they lose it all. Multiple point of view characters hedge the bet and allows readers to like some and not others while still enjoying the story, the same can't be said for a single point of view character. For me Mark Lawrence lost the bet by using Nona as the single point of view character. Nona feels like she would make a fine support character, but nothing about her truly drew me in. The point of view of a young girl in a warrior convent was frankly dull and subsequently made the story dull for me.

Red Sister never really caught my interest. The warrior convent, the coming of age tropes, and endless classes just weren't something I wanted to read about. I can't say why it didn't work for me. I started avoiding the book shorty after I started reading it, which is always a bad sign. Perhaps I'm just not really a fan of Mark Lawrence's writing.

Red Sister, in the end, just wasn't a story for me.

View all my reviews