Book: Oblivion's Hymn by A.J. Peterson
Reviewed by Rallie X
Rating: God Tier
It's time guys, it's time! I've read and loved and cried and read 𝙀𝙭𝙤𝙙𝙪𝙨'𝙨 𝘾𝙝𝙤𝙧𝙪𝙨 by A.J. Peterson (@cozywritingdragon) so obviously I had to re-read 𝙊𝙗𝙡𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙤𝙣'𝙨 𝙃𝙮𝙢𝙣 first. I reviewed it last year when I was still kind of new to this so I decided to revise and repost it for those of you who HAVEN'T read it yet - that way you'll know what you're missing tomorrow :D
QOTD: Do you like to reread a series when a new book comes out, or just trust your memory?
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𝔹𝕠𝕠𝕜 ℝ𝕖𝕧𝕚𝕖𝕨, ℝ𝕖𝕧𝕚𝕤𝕖𝕕/ℝ𝕖𝕔𝕒𝕡: 𝙊𝙗𝙡𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙤𝙣'𝙨 𝙃𝙮𝙢𝙣!
I don't know where to start. When I first read Oblivion's Hymn last year when it came out I had to hit it twice in a row because it was just too much for me to really take in at one time. This is my favorite book. Nobody ever really has an answer to that question, but I do. I've given six stars to maybe three books ever, and this is one of them. So neeedless to say reading it again before Exodus's Chorus was just as powerful, just as lovely and meaningful and perfect, as it was the first two times.
I don't know where to start. When I first read Oblivion's Hymn last year when it came out I had to hit it twice in a row because it was just too much for me to really take in at one time. This is my favorite book. Nobody ever really has an answer to that question, but I do. I've given six stars to maybe three books ever, and this is one of them. So neeedless to say reading it again before Exodus's Chorus was just as powerful, just as lovely and meaningful and perfect, as it was the first two times.
"Equal trade is the most basic law of magic"
There are so many things that set this book apart - Rhienne and Echo are two of my favorite protagonists ever, they have a degree of realism to them that is maybe surprising to find in a fantasy novel (I mean Echo isn't even human). The way A.J. wrote their internal conflicts and the question of deservingness - whether they deserve happiness, to be loved - was fantastic, and some of the most insightful writing I've ever encountered in any genre (and the way she brings D&D into it had me cracking up every time. I mean. A warlock isn't gonna get more spell slots but I know what a level up with an invocation looks like!)
Rhienne and Echo are such believable best friends; like, while A.J. hasn't actually written stories of their childhood mischief they exist somewhere in the aether. There's a very specific dynamic that occurs when formerly inseparable best friends come together after years apart, and she captured it in a way that did justice to that while incorporating the legacy of trauma in the ten years they'd been apart. These are two women who love each other so deeply even if they are both sometimes silly gooses about it. The same feeling of being fully fleshed out off-screen goes for Irelia, Tash, and the rest of the crew. I'm so looking forward to getting an Irelia PoV in the next book (Exodus as well, I need to see the god of travel join the quest)!
The Untold are terrifying fascist garbage (THEIR BONES GLOW THROUGH THEIR SKIN), and Mishara is an incredible villain with an arc of her own that I can't really say anything about but oh my lord she is so fleshed out; like, again, Mishara might not have her own stories where we can see them but they surely exist (maybe we could have some of them as a treat >.>). Oblivion, too, such an excellent villain - his fingerprints are all over the story even where he isn't present, and he's a very specific kind of "evil" that is utterly inhuman.
And of course, my favorite of favorites, the fourth god Bastion. I love him. I love him so much, from the first moment he speaks I fell in love. He brought the tears but also a level of strangeness that felt almost like manic pixie dream [god] but in a cool way (a fun version of the trope, not the cringe version) - he's out here protecting the small and lost no matter what that means; Rhienne, a lizard, a sock, but also acquiring incredibly powerful magical objects and "fixing them up," pointing about not being able to test them on people, and drinking magic tea. "Plate tectonics" is one of the cleverest ways to talk about accepting and embracing life, growth - change. I mean:
"Even if I cannot see what moves beneath me, or above me, or right in front of me, the one thing I know for certain is that I cannot stay where I am."
Brilliant.
Beyond the characters themselves, this is also the most accurate depiction of suicidal ideation I have ever seen, and the way Bastion never told Rhienne to go back, to think of what she was missing, but just listened and offered insight which is what made it so beautiful; I mean, "'I don't know if I can do it'," Rhienne whispered. Bastion held out his hand, made of lost, forgotten, and broken things. "'Do you want to try?'"
This is just a beautiful world that A.J. has created for us, and I'm so grateful I get to be a super fan over something so full of hope. Adult women facing trauma together and finding life on the other side isn't a story that gets told with this degree of love and care often enough. If you love adventure stories, if you love stories about queer friendship, or shit - even if you just love stories about airships - you need to pick up Oblivion's Hymn. There's so much more going on than I can even begin to touch on here and you deserve to see it for yourself!
"The gods happened. Magic happened. You can try to manipulate them all you like, but they'll always find a way to exact their price."
— Page 101
For Fans Of: Idolfire, The Queen of Blood, The Library of Amorlin, The Secret World of Briar Rose, Six Crimson Cranes, Treasure Planet, Road to El Dorado, Dungeons & Dragons, Baldur's Gate 3; fans of The Expanse who love fantasy.
"We are of gossamer, fickle and impermanent... So whenever we can, we must be bastions for hope and light."