Oh, Stiletto--

How I wanted to love you! How I wanted to immerse myself in your pages. I wanted laugh out loud at the Chequey's zany monster encounters, chuckle at the witty dialogue and zip along with an intriguing plot. I wanted to enjoy intriguing characters with bizarre talents running around London.

Instead, I have a young woman mourning a lost love and baffled by her inclusion into a diplomatic mission, the slow pace of the diplomatic mission interrupted by mysterious deaths, and the even slower pace of the generations of Grafter political activity. Critical eye-rolling junctures include an almost-rape scene that feels like it is meant to be empowering but isn't (once again, the male perspective, ugh), the ages old plot device of Keeping Very Big But Unimportant Secrets Until the Last Minute and the realization that the Lost Love is actually an important plot line, not just characterization.

This could have benefited with some heavy editing and some reflection, not necessarily in that order. The aforementioned rape scene was off in tone, and my co-reader Naomi also noticed it right away. It sets the tone in a weird male-perspective way, much like in The Rook when Mufawny was staring at the mirror and examining her boobs (or however that played out; I remember it as a pivot point for some readers). When Something Big happens to that team, the tone of frivolity is lost. It was a serious plotting mistake, as it suddenly made much of the asides, the silliness, and even other characters' actions seem thoughtless and callous. I think O'Malley might have been looking for a story parallel to the whiz-bang opening of The Rook, but in this case it failed. Red shirt axiom: if good guys are going to die, we can't know anything about them personally.

I kept this book around for weeks, hoping to re-read it and convince myself otherwise, but I just lack the will. Too many of its weak point play into areas unimportant to me, so your mileage may vary. It turns out that this was the longest book I read in 2016; telling, I think, that it should have been shorter. Sometimes, More is Just More, publishing industry! Maybe one day I'll give it another shot, but it seems unlikely. The overall structure with a particular story-line ending proved too disappointing. ( )

Daniel O'Malley has a way about him. After reading The Rook, I was easily able to guess what the twist would be in Stiletto.

A good book, but not as good as The Rook. The laughs, although hilarious, were fewer and further between. ( )

Let's get a few things out of the way: Stiletto was a very different book from the Rook. But it was a very, very good book. In fact, I think it might be a better book than Rook (although not quite as enjoyable.) In Stiletto, O'Malley zooms out from the narrow perspective of Myfanwy to a much bigger story about the Checquy, told primarily from the point of view of the Checquy's mortal enemies, now nascent allies, the Grafters. By switching perspective, O'Malley uses the different takes on supernatural and what each considers the proper way of things to really explore cultural dissonance. I thought O'Malley had a lot of interesting things to say about assimilation, alliances and immigration through the lens of these secret, ancient, supernatural organization. As an aside, I felt pretty anxious about how bring the Antagonists into the story would work with that because I was worried that they would be yet another, totally separate secret, ancient, supernatural group that would really unbalance the novel. I was extremely pleased with the direction that he went in. Also, it's very unusual for me to come across a book with a twist that both makes sense and surprises me.

I also continue to be extremely pleased by how deftly O'Malley writes female characters: they are distinct, nuanced, not sexualized and have agency. Yes, they tend to be dismayed to wear extremely expensive clothing, which they subsequently manage to ruin during action sequences, but everyone has their quirks.

Speaking of literary quirks, people who didn't like the Rook won't like Stiletto either. O'Malley loves info-dumping, and uses the merger between the Checquy and the Grafters as an excuse to go off on historical tangents (I'm pretty into his world-building, and found this fun, but it's an odd pacing choice.) He is intent on sharing the backstory of every character in the universe, even if they only survive for two pages. And he paces books like a TV show, with lots of monster-of-the-week encounters (including one that's kind of poorly paced.) But he's a fresh new voice on the speculative fiction scene, writing new, fun, things with well-written characters, well-drawn settings and something new to say with fantasy worlds, so, yeah, I'll read anything he writes. ( )

Very good. Exciting, insanely fast paced, a couple twists I didn't see coming and one that I did, and the two new main characters were really all kinds of great. ( )

A solid 4.75 mainly for luck of humor, otherwise i've enjoyed this second book A LOT!
The background story of the conflict between Checkuy and Grafters is awesome! Not really much to question here.
One think i didn't expect was the Gestalt twist! What a curveball that was!Lol.
I'm impatiently waiting for book #3. Oh and, thanks to the author for providing something this good. ( )