New Favourite Series! The Tensorate Series by Neon Yang

I saw the first book The Black Tides of Heaven somewhere around, added it to my list, don’t even remember why. Then someday the ebook was on sale and I bought it! And then this past weekend I randomly picked it up since I wanted a short read. Little did I know I would end up binging the whole series in two (and a bit) days!

I absolutely fell in love with the series, and now I’m going to try and convince you all to pick it up as well!

In case you don’t feel like reading the whole review; here are some bullet point reasons to pick up this series:

• Short books! (and short chapters)
• Very diverse!
• Non-western world!
• Great characters!
• Amazing writing!
• Fast-paced!
• Gorgeous covers!

Book 1
Title: The Black Tides of Heaven.
Author: Neon Yang
Publisher:  Tor.com
Page count: 182
Genre: Adult fantasy.
Rating: 5 stars (CAWPILE rating: 9.57)

GoodReads link!

My thoughts:

In this book we follow the twins Akeha and Mokoya basically from when they were born until age 39. Each part of this novella follows one big event in their lives, and mainly in Akeha’s life, since we read from his perspective.

As soon as I started this book I fell in love with the writing! I would continue reading just for that!

I also fell in love with the world! Yang did the world building amazingly! For a lot of things there was no explanation, it just was, and it worked so well for this book! There was also no space for loads of explanation since the books is very short! There is magic in this book which I do not fully understand, but I feel like that was not necessary!

I loved that children are born non-binary, and at some point in their lives they choose a gender, or they don’t!

And I don’t even know what to say about the plot! For such a short read, it had an amazing plot! There was no part where it was boring, there was always something happening! But it also did not feel rushed at all!

The characters were amazing, and I loved the different relations in this book!

Within 5 minutes after finishing this I bought the ebooks for book 2, 3 and 4 haha! And I think within an hour I started the next one!

Book 2
Title: The Red Threads of Fortune.
Page count: 166
Rating: 5 stars (CAWPILE rating: 9.43)

GoodReads link!

My thoughts:

So I had to start this one straight away!

This one we read from Mokoya’s perspective, two year (I think) after the end of The Black Tides of Heavens! At the end of book one something traumatic happens to her (which I’m not mentioning obviously), and we see her dealing with this.

Besides her dealing with this traumatic event, we also learn about some weird things that have been happening in this world! I loved learning more about this world, and especially the different creatures living there! Also there was some kind of betrayal (that I also cannot say too much about), but it was done so well!

Once again the plot is so good, and so well-paced, especially for the size of the book! Bit it was done quite differently from the first book. In the first book just some important parts of their lives were picked out, while in this one we just follow one-ish year of their live!

Still loving the characters, I love that we get to see more about the side characters that we got to learn in the first book! And also some that we got to know in this one!

So obviously half an hour later I started book 3!

Book 3
Title: The Descent of Monsters.
Page count: 152
Rating:  stars (CAWPILE rating: 9.00)

GoodReads link!

My thoughts:

The start of this book caught me a bit by surprise! The writing style was quite different, we followed different characters. The first couple of chapters felt a bit separate from the previous two books.

But after a while I could see how the plot connected to the previous one, it has everything to do with the ‘betrayal’ thing I mentioned! And then slowly the characters came back as well! And I started to love it again!

First I was doubting if I was liking this change in writing, since it was not written as normal text, but more like journal pages and interviews! But it did fit the story so well. And it was actually quite interesting to read about the characters we already know, from someone else’s perspective!

I loved the changes we got in this book, in the storytelling way!

Once again I loved all the character development we got, and all the relations that changed throughout the story!

Book 4
Title: The Ascent to Godhood
Page count: 103
Rating: 4.5 stars (CAWPILE rating: 8.86)

GoodReads link!

My thoughts:

This one felt, again, quite different from the previous novellas! Mainly because of the writing. In this book we read about Lady Han telling her story, but it is written as if she telling it to you. Like ‘oh so you’re wondering why I said this?’ for example! Which took me a bit to get into, but once again I ended up loving it! It is the reason why this book got a slightly lower rating!

I can’t really say much about this, since of course so much has already happened and we of course do not do spoilers! But this ending..! OMG I was so shocked, but it made so much sense! I love being shocked by endings!

The reviews per novella are getting shorter and shorter, but of course I cannot say much without spoiling the plot ahah!

But I really hope I have now convinced you to pick up this novella series!
If I’m correct the bind-up of these four novellas is releasing in September, which I will definitely order, and then I will most probably reread it!

Have you read this series? What did you think?