ash's Reviews > A Prayer for the Crown-Shy

I truly just do not know what to think of these books. This one had the same sort of 12 year old new vegetarian lecture tone with the, "Well of course there aren't any leaders, that would just end in corruption," kind of stuff and the long passages of descriptive world-building that weren't particularly interesting, but because Dex and Mosscap's relationship developed (and got kind of romantic tbqh!), that became more compelling than simply being in Dex's quarter-life crisis interior. I thought the conversation on the beach at the end was also a pretty sweet and satisfying place to end my time with these characters.

Honestly the most baffling thing about these books to me is that they're intended for adults, I guess? They have a real children's parable tone but then Dex will be like, real horny out of nowhere and the juxtaposition was just very funny.

Oh wait, also, if the luddite beach people were going to react badly to a robot and shun it, why the fuck would you take your friend there? I thought like, oh they probably talked about it and Mosscap was like, 'Oh no, Sibling Dex, I must experience all the colors of the emotional rainbow in reaction to my existence!' but no Dex just didn't talk to Mosscap about it at all until they were already there? What the fuck was the point of that? Even if you wanted to let the one beach person be kind and have this dramatic moment with the dying fish (Yes, Becky, people do eat lambs and lambs are very cute, we get it.) why in the fuck would you do it at the cost of making Dex look like a complete thoughtless asshole when they haven't been before? Just let Mosscap want to go there anyway? Obviously? Absolutely BONKERS authorial decision that made me put the book down for a day lmao.

ALSO, fisherman don't let fish die like that, they club or spike them because letting them suffocate is unnecessarily cruel. But again, 12 year old vegetarian hours over here, so why expect anything else.