I received a digital and audio copy from RB Media & Tordotcom via NetGalley. All reviews are my own.
I finally have a label for my read–the–book–to–write–the–review ratio problem. I procrastinate. It's not out of laziness but to gather my thoughts. Some books leave me with heavy sentiments, while others are just as bland as I read them. For all intended purposes, I try to write out my main thought points so I won't lose the momentum later, but as life continues its trajectory, sometimes I never get back to the review. This is one of them. It's been months since I picked up my first ever P. Djèlí Clark title, The Dead Cat Tail Assassins, and I've determined that I didn't care for the book. Yet, there's something about it that keeps me thinking.
I started this book reading digitally but then quickly switched to audio once I understood it was going to take some getting used to the setting of the novelette. The 7-hour and 22-minute production is read by Lynnette R. Freeman. Freeman is a newcomer to me, so I have no real opinion of her narration style and quirks. Maybe I'll run into her voice in a different book, and we can see if she's one of those ones for me. But for now, she was cool.
To clarify my introduction to the review, I want to say there is nothing wrong with TDCTA. It just wasn't what I thought it would be. And being that I hear nothing but great things about Clark's writing and storytelling, I thought I would be in for a ride. No, not the case. In all honesty, I should've DNFed. Lord knows I thought about it a few times while reading, but I decided to push through instead.
In a nutshell, TDCTA is about a top assassin who was hired to kill a doppelgänger of herself, and she refused. As a result, the entire assassin organization is after her for breaching the contract. I enjoyed the world-building, the framing of the story, the witty dialog, the fighting scenes, and the intricacies of how we got to the plot. However, I just could not get into it. It was a level of weirdness I wasn't expecting, and it took too long for me to latch on. TDCTA is one story I mentioned that I blindly picked out from my TBR and started reading. I didn't read the synopsis to refresh my mind on why I had it in my TBR; I just screamed, PIKACHU, I CHOOSE YOU! And here we are.
Overall, I genuinely don't have a rating for this story. But because I was approved for this title on NetGalley, and they require a star rating system, I'll throw it a 3. The Dead Cat Tail Assassins wasn't for me, but I'm pretty sure a few people would gobble this up. The unique world-building, the complex plot, and the unexpected twists might be appealing to some readers. I can even say that this story will not deter me from reading other works from Clark. I still want to see the hype about the man, but until then, we can cross this one off the list as 'Read.'
The Dead Cat Tail Assassins is available now!
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