Grey Sister

By: Mark Lawrence

Narrated by: Heather O'Neill

Length: 15 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's Summary

The second novel in a brilliant fantasy series from the international best-selling author of Prince of Thorns.

Behind its walls, the Convent of Sweet Mercy has trained young girls to hone their skills for centuries. In Mystic Class, Novice Nona Grey has begun to learn the secrets of the universe. But so often even the deepest truths just make our choices harder. Before she leaves the convent, Nona must choose which order to dedicate herself to - and whether her path will lead to a life of prayer and service or one of the blade and the fist.

All that stands between her and these choices are the pride of a thwarted assassin, the designs of a would-be empress wielding the Inquisition like a knife, and the vengeance of the empire's richest lord.

As the world narrows around her, and her enemies attack her through the system she is sworn to, Nona must find her own path despite the competing pulls of friendship, revenge, ambition, and loyalty.

And in all this only one thing is certain: there will be blood.

©2018 Bobalinga Ltd. (P)2018 Recorded Books

Cool world, weak plot

I'm currently most of the way through the 3rd book, which says something about the quality if I'm willing to continue with the series, but I think my opinion of this story has declined the more I read/listen. I'll try to avoid major spoilers. I'll list my gripes in order of importance/annoyance. This is my review of the story so far, not solely this book of the trilogy.

There are some very well written scenes and engaging action sequences. The world that the author has created is quite interesting and has so much potential for interesting interactions. The end of the world through an ice age with an ever-thinning strip of land cleared by ancient technology? Some small scale magics and special abilities that are diverse and interesting? An order of warrior nuns? This is all adding up to be novel and interesting, but then the problems begin:

1. Plot

The characters spend most of their time with pointless rivalries and small-ball intrigues while the world is ending. The momentous, "how can we save the world" plot-line is lost in in-fighting between parties that it's never established why they dislike one another, or why they couldn't set that aside for a day to try the only solution to the world ending that we've heard about, which sounds really simple to at least try. Spoiler: By the third book a decade has passed and the potential solution to the world ending has been sitting on the figurative shelf for that entire time and nobody has even tried to implement it. I guess they couldn't find a couple people who would want to cooperate just for a minute to see if it worked?

The plot motif of: 1) meet school rival, 2) fight and hate each other, 3) gain mutual respect and friendship literally happens the exact same way 3 or 4 times with different people the main character meets. It's just repetitive and annoying. There's also a big logical flaw at one point (minor spoiler): there are some tunnels that the Abbess declares off-limits because they are too dangerous for students. Nona is caught trespassing, and the penalty will be... death. That's right, the penalty for trespassing somewhere dangerous is death.

2. Characters

New characters are introduced and they are just evil, and others are good, and significant reasons for conflict and feelings are glossed over. The guy who wants to sentence Nona to death just automatically hates her and wants her dead. The details and reasons aren't really mentioned, something vague about a bribe? But how does that add up to visceral hate?
Nona kills a guy's brother. That guy should want revenge and be angry at her, but instead of making him at all sympathetic or complex, he's just a total sadist. So was the brother, so is the dad, so is pretty much everyone who gets in the main character's way. It's way too heavy-handed and lacks any nuance.

Then there's Nona, who switches between bloodthirsty super-warrior and schoolgirl every time her mood shifts and it gets pretty disconcerting when she's just murdered 12 soldiers with her bare hands and then is all, 'oh gosh they might kick me out of school' for some minor transgression. That's just jarring. When another student tries to sabotage, poison, or murder her and she just whines and says 'gosh how will I ever deal with this' after she was just bathing in some dude's blood last chapter. It doesn't make any sense.

3. Scenes
There are some obvious Harry Potter parallels because these are young people in a school for magic, but Harry Potter had a big over-arching story that all the little scenes played into. They have defense against the dark arts and Snape hates Harry for a REASON. Classroom scenes show pieces of the plot falling together and teachers challenge the students or put them at risk very seldom and for reasons that make sense. In this book they are so inconsistent and there are just random classroom scenes that don't contribute to the plot or significant character development, plus teachers needlessly put characters at risk with no benefit or reason to it. It's just very ham-fisted. If you ask, 'why was this scene in the book' you would have a hard time coming up with a reason for a lot of scenes and even the sub-plots.

4. Magic

The magic powers start out very subtle and very rare, but by book three they're throwing powers around that are way overpowered, and then characters are stymied by the simplest obstacles. You're thinking along the lines of, 'you just were shooting fireballs and blasting things last chapter, now you can't light a candle?' (not those things literally, but enough to break immersion). A lot of inconsistency and unsatisfying use of magic. And people born with these supposedly rare powers seem to be coming out of the woodwork throughout.

5. Writing

The prose is actually pretty good; sentence seem well constructed and individual scenes play out neatly and are generally well paced, aside from the end of book 2 which was kind of a mess.

6. Reading

The reader mispronounces a couple words. The one that springs to mind is 'archon', with a 'ch' like 'chance'. There are a smattering of others as well. Overall they do a great job, except for one character in book 2 who is represented with the most annoying, high-pitched voice.

My main complaints are about making the characters deeper and consistent and making the plot cohesive and momentous, instead of dealing so much with the trivial. I think the world is great and new and has so much potential for interesting stories, but that potential just isn't explored enough.

8 people found this helpful

It Shouldn't Be Great, But It Is

We have all read books like this before. A child from some forgotten town is discovered to have some power or gift. Swifted away to some school or monastery to learn their powers before galloping off on a quest to save the world, collecting friends and tropes to help, protect, and die along the way. The heroe's powers gather as he/she battles the the forces of evil, a corrupt church, or corrupt monarchy.

Grey Sister, and The Books of the Ancestor series, follows along this path we have read many times before. You would think that would be the recipe for a average story with no hope of originality. So how does Author Mark Lawrence manage to weave a great story within the confines of a well used fantasy theme?

It starts with the main protagonist Nona Grey, the heroin of this story. Nona is not your common farm girl/boy who discovers that she has some awesome power bestowed to her and feels the need to do right and save the world. Nona's loyalties belong only to her desire for revenge, and the need to protect the only friends she has ever had. Nona is no pure hearted savior with any feeling of obligation to be humanity's protector, she is angry, and the heat of that anger drives her. It is this that makes Nona almost a anti-hero, the opposite of the usual noble savior of all that is good type protagonist that is the norm of this type of fantasy story. This is what separates The Books of the Ancestor series most of all. Nona Grey drives this story, and although she may not be the virtue of saintliness usually required to save the world, you can't help but feel she will accomplish it just the same.

The narration from Heather O'Niell seemed to improve for me this time around. I'm not sure if that is because she actually improved, or if I have just become used to her as the voices of these characters. She still remains a bit screechy for some male parts, but I enjoyed the performance.

Overall, Grey Sister is one of my favorite books so far this year. Maybe not a new theme for a fantasy series, but definitely a familiar setting shined up to make something wholly better. Can't wait for the next book.

21 people found this helpful

Middle child

First of all I just want to state that I loved this book. If you enjoyed the first one this one will be no different. My only complaint is that it slightly suffers from “book 2 syndrome” being that plot points are left dangling for the future, cryptic messages are stated at the literal end, and the climax occurs to close to the end of the story instead of easing you out.

I know I went heavy on my explanations of the negatives but on a whole I really did love this book, I just hate how long I’ll have to wait to get the next one

12 people found this helpful

Lost in translation

Book one was a gem , grey sister got lost in translation seems the author just wrote this one for the check, sorry can’t do book three even though I love Nona........

2 people found this helpful

A Visceral Whirlwind of a Story

Mark Lawrence is one of my favorite authors currently writing in the fantasy genre and this novel is easily on a par with Emperor of Thorns and the Wheel of Osheim. It is a definite improvement over Red Sister, which was a very good book, but suffered somewhat with pacing issues. Those issues are ironed out completely in this second installment, and the book is extremely fast paced, and maintains that pace from start to finish.

The plot is very tightly written, and the addition of the Abbess as a secondary viewpoint to Nona really gives the novel a different and much improved storytelling ability. I love Nona as a character, but her single minded determination to get her revenge and help her friends when they need it, was occasionally limiting in the first book. The addition of the abbess's calm, rational calculation as a counterpoint to Nona's pure, unadulterated drive to succeed, succeeded excellently in making the story tick.

As always Lawrence's characters were strong, human, and believable, and after two books written mostly from the perspective of female characters, I can confidently say he can write both sexes with great ability. Also, I was impressed how much more he was able to develop the full cast of characters in this second book in the series, without substantially slowing down the plot.

The last thing that continues to jump out at me about this series is the world Lawrence has created. His first two trilogies were set in the broken empire, which while being an interesting world, wasn't that nuanced, and mostly simply resembled a medieval world which had suffered an apocalyptic event in the past. However, this world shown in the Book of the Ancestor shows without a doubt that Lawrence is not a one trick pony, which was a small concern I had when i learned he had a new setting for this trilogy. The one thing I do have a small complaint about is the magic system of this world, which while fascinating to an extent is kind of confusing and not especially well explained in detail throughout the books. I do understand it, but to a certain extent I do feel that Lawrence is leaving the system purposely open ended, so not to cripple himself for future writing ventures in this world.

Finally, I must briefly discuss the narration, which in my opinion was somewhere between alright and poor. I really thought that some of the voices tended to blend together, especially those of the male characters in the book.

As novels go I think this is the book I was looking forward most to this year, and I have to say that I am incredibly pleased with the results. I cannot wait for next year, so I can finish the series with Holy Sister. Please take the time to read this novel if you are looking for a fast paced, intelligent, and violent fantasy book.

6 people found this helpful

Interesting story; terrible narrarator

The story is pretty good. I liked the first one and I thought this book was a nice continuation, even if it went in a strange direction. The narrator, though, is absolutely terrible. Her range of voices can be counted on one hand, and her go-to "accent/voice" for a one-off character sounds like they have a cold. I would not recommend this audiobook to anyone. Get a written copy instead.

1 person found this helpful

Step back from first book

Great narrator and characters but the plot/story never seems to come together. Good, not great.

1 person found this helpful

Too boring for most of the book

I was incredibly bored with nothing happening of interest until 5 hours in. And then still mostly boredom until the last few hours. Which still suffered from moments of boredom.

The first problem I suppose is that the author failed to manage expectations. I almost never had any positive expectations, instead it was always either for example with the monster which should have caught my interest but didn't 'uh huh,I predict the frying pan will not be used, and whatever happens will be boring' not sure why I felt this way, but I just didnt have the feeling it would be interesting.

Or like with the painfully obvious manipulations, it had all the fun of watching someone in a horror movie slow walking towards their prredictable death at the end of a hallway. Exceot instead of high tension "No No No!" It was a low tension "Just get it over with"

And the second, maybe biggest problem, is the way the author constantly, incessently reiterated things. At the end of the book, the excitment tended to stop for instance to wait for apple yo re-explain how much information flows to her and how. And thats just one example. It happened over and over and over and over and over and over again. And not abbreviated reminders either, but always nearly the entire bit retold in full. And I think by the end of the book the entire first book ended up recapped despite the author's foreward insisting he wanted to avoid that.

1 person found this helpful

Very interesting, with a couple small flaws

Ok, the writer is definitely skilled with prose and storytelling. The flow between moments of different characters and different locations is absorbing more than any book I have listened to.

I recommend the two books easily. The performances are well done, although the separation between character voices is becoming muddled in the second book.

However, I can not give a full 5 star review without mentioning the absolutely absurd decision trees the main character goes through at times. ...and considering the skill the writer has, the breaks stand out like a candle in a dark room. The main character goes through intelligence and emotional swings that just don't make sense...regardless of the effort the writer tries to work in justification. After the first book, you have a good feel for the character, the depth, the confusion, etc...you can slide the decision process off due to age and the events. The second book seems to want the same simplistic starting character just to drive plot flows. While the plot flow is interesting, you grind your teeth going...what the? Making up an example...I found a brown rock -> I will ask the teacher immediately about the brown rock because it is so cool. I am told that rocks are very cool and if I find one again I see more cool things. I found a purple rock -> I won't ask the teacher about the rock at all because its cool and "things". The "things" portion will never be mentioned again. It will not impact anything else. It is added there because I need to be found with a purple rock and get a whipping.

Again, it doesn't happen often, but when it does, its a like a bad horror film. I will probably get the next in series....maybe just skip the chapters full of the garbage choices.

1 person found this helpful

Terrible narrator

The story is more than a bit hard to follow, and the experience is made terrible by the narrator. She’s the worst narrator I’ve ever been able to force myself to finish. Her voices are awful, and her page breaks are simply 7naceptable. Heather O’Neill is a name I’ll remember, and will absolutely avoid.

4 people found this helpful