Member Reviews
I really enjoyed this author's first book and was really excited to pick up this book. It look me some time to get into this book with its crazy blend of 1st, 2nd and 3rd person perspectives but I kept reading because the characters were so interesting and I wanted to see if he could pull off these unique storytelling technique--and he totally does.
The story begins with an unnamed narrator (in second person) being told stories of the Old Country by his lola. Later, the story shifts to the Inverted Theater where dreamers come to see the world and stories that his lola told acted out in a performance on a giant stage. In this world, the land is ruled by a cruel emperor and his three sons, known as First Terror, Second Terror, and Third Terror. The story involves two warriors with the task of sending a package east over the course of five days. At the same time, the Terrors need to be dealt with to continue on the quest.
The world building is fantastic but know going in that this is a brutal and violent world. The various points of view are blended seamlessly where the warriors story is told in third person and many secondary characters are told in first person. It definitely requires some patience but once I got going, it was so fascinating to read. This was a fantastic story that was well worth the effort.
DNF @ 11%. This is VERY dense and heavy and, at times, uncomfortable, and it's not even remotely close to what I thought it was going to be based on the description. I liked the use of second-person, and the worldbuilding itself was accomplished quickly and skillfully, but it just very much was not for me. I found myself dreading reading it, which means it's time to DNF. Maybe I'll pick it back up eventually, but this was just not for me.
This book had some high highs, but also some low lows in terms of plot. The beginning sets you up to be entered into a mystical world, but then the journey takes far too long to take off. I felt like within the first 30% of the book, I had gone from couldn’t put it down to barely picking it up at least twice. Would certainly give the author another try as the writing style is respectable, but sometimes I found this book hard to connect with
The Spear Cuts Through Water is many things. At its core, it’s the tale of Jun and Keema, two strangers who help a fallen god escape her captivity at the hands of her cruel husband, the emperor, and their sons, aptly dubbed the Three Terrors. But Jun and Keema’s adventure is actually being acted out in a magical theater in another dimension hundreds of years later, with the book’s narrative winds between Jun and Keema’s story, the performance of it, and the experience of one man watching from the audience — though he’s fated to forget what he’s witnessed as soon as he leaves the theater.
The Spear Cuts Through Water recalls Gabriel García Márquez with its surreal fluidity, though the way Jimenez weaves together first-, second-, and third-person perspectives creates an immersive style just his own. And his decision to consistently disrupt the primary story with the flowing thoughts of surrounding characters gives you the sense that you’re floating through this world, both tethered to and set free by Jimenez’s mesmerizing prose.
So, as I said, The Spear Cuts Through Water is many, many things. It’s a spellbinding tribute to oral storytelling and folklore. It’s a thoughtful exploration of identity and family. But more than anything, The Spear Cuts Through Water is a love story, and one unlike anything you’ve read before.
I absolutely adored this book. The nested narrative structure is unique and feels dreamlike at times. I really loved the blurring of genre lines. The character work is stunning. The world building is phenomenal. I was on the edge of my seat for most of the plot. While I don't think this is a book for everyone, I cannot recommend this enough!
This is going to wind up in my top five for the year, and one I recommend when people ask me for recs, just from how unexpectedly this book took me. The summary almost does the book a disservice because it boils the narrative down to the bare actions and frames it as a fairly tropey fantasy narrative, which this book is anything but. I'd almost recommend going into this book blind, and just letting yourself experience it. The whole story is framed as a theater performance that you (second person) are watching, complete with Greek chorus, and Jimenez weaves through third and second person narratives like he's surfacing and diving over in a swimming stroke and weaves them together perfectly with interjections from the crowds around our main characters. The writing is amazingly, gorgeously lyrical, and I have a feeling I'll be coming back to turns of phrase from this months down the line. This is a gorgeously framed, sumptuous world with lyrical as hell writing. Pick this up; you're going to be seeing this on end of the year lists.
I've said it twice now and have been proven wrong but I think I'm right this time. This is my number 1 read for 2022. Cinematic. An epic story told by the child of the Moon and Water upon a stage within a dream. A story told by the voices of ancestors and goddesses, in a place outside of time.
I went in without having read any reviews and was concerned when I saw the format. It broke all the traditional "never use this tense or this voice" rules and by doing so created a more immersive experience. To see through the eyes of the villains and heros and even brief glimpses into the head of witnesses, brought a humanity to characters who would otherwise be one sided or flat, and brought both the good and the bad of a situation that would otherwise be seen through one scope. Death came for those I believed would make it to the end. Tears threatened to fall. My stomach churned as each Terror faced, sons of the Moon, became more feared than the last. Somehow the author still managed to make inhumane monsters pull at your heartstrings.
Then there was the heat building between our two men on their adventure that whew! JUST WHEW! I cannot say enough about this story because so much was said. Even when I thought a thread of the story had been completed, a surprise twist resurrected the thread and weaved a new layer into the novel. I love this story and thank you so much Netgalley for the chance to read it.
What a beautiful homage to oral storytelling and generational tales. This book defies expectations and typical narrative structures by combining perspectives to create a tapestry of storylines that all coalesce at the end.
Half of this novel is your typical third person narrative about two warriors tasked with carrying the body of a dying god east across the country. Half is a second person narrative of a grandmother telling the tale to you as the reader. And yet about part is a glimpse into passing characters as we hear their thoughts on each page.
I dont think I'll ever get over how beautiful the writing is, and while it may not be for everyone, I feel like so many people will appreciate the style and how it paints a picture in your mind if the landscape and characters.
Now we can finally talk about the heroes. I'm gonna be in love for a while. The way the author builds up their backstory just enough to make me care about them, but still keeping true to the oral storytelling "genre" with only pertinent details being shared?? I could never.
I'm going out and immediately buying my own physical copy.
The beginning of the story started a little slow, and I initially had to reread it a few times. After the initial hang up I was hooked. Simon Jimenez has such a unique style of writing that is so refreshing. I was given an ARC ebook, but I bought the audiobook. I plan to buy the physical copy and add to my home library.
"This is the tale of your land, and the spear that cuts through it."
This book took a while to draw me in, but the writing is absolutely beautiful and the story is totally unique.
I was very excited for this one but unfortunately I have to call it quits. The way it’s written is definitely unique but it’s not working for me. I can’t get invested in anything
Quitting at 10% feels pretty early but I dreaded picking it up. Each chapter is over 2 hours each and I need shorter chapters.
Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book.
The Spear Cuts Through Water
by Simon Jimenez
The personal struggle of two desperate people who find that their country and their world needs more from them Jun, a guard of the Moon throne finds that he need to step up. The corruption of his culture has caused so much suffering he can not stand by any more. A heroic tale that can be share with teen readers to help inspire them to stand up for what is right.
Simon Jimenez’s debut novel, The Vanished Birds (2020), is one of my favorite science fiction novels of recent years. It earned an A from me when I reviewed it and made my Best of 2020 list.
I’ve been waiting with bated breath for the release of The Spear Cuts Through Water, Jimenez’s follow up and a novel in the fantasy genre, and was thrilled when I obtained a copy.
The Spear Cuts Through Water is an ambitious novel. It balances unusual scope with unusual intimacy, not an easy thing to do. Its POV structure and formatting are experimental, and it shifts between three fantastical settings, two of them different lands separated not only by a large body of water but also by eras in time, as well as a third place/time that is in fact timeless and that connects the other two.
This is hard book to describe, and the best I can do is to start by mentioning some of the unconventional style choices before getting into the characters, settings, and plot summary in the reverse order from what I usually do.
Even the way the text is laid out is unexpected. There are bolded, italicized and centered titles between some of the scene breaks, and often they are comprised of a phrase or a sentence that begins the next scene or one that ends the previous scene. Once in a while a title doesn’t seem to be part of either, and is (I think) being used as titles typically are. Sometimes the titles are complete sentences but occasionally they sometimes only a part of a sentence.
More importantly, though, much of the narration is in second person, not first or third. There are also sections where the main narration is interrupted by another character or characters’ POV for a sentence or a few sentences. The interjectors are often unnamed, though I was usually able to figure out who they were from context. Their interruptions (for lack of a better word) frequently shift the narration from second person narration to first person and then back to second person. They usually don’t get a separate paragraph but are offset by within the same paragraph through italicized text
This is a partial review. The complete review can be found at Dear Author, here.
https://dearauthor.com/book-reviews/overall-b-reviews/b-minus-reviews/review-the-spear-cuts-through-water-by-smon-jimenez/
Great story, slow burn, huge amount of attention required while reading.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC.
This was a great fantasy. I loved this one and it was my first by this author. Serious talent right here.
This book was pretty hyped, but I didn’t really like it. How it is set up is really hard to get into and follow initially. There are 3 “timelines.” We’ll call it present, where we don’t even know who the narrator is. We find out all about their family, but very little about them. Then there is a “outside time” where the narrator goes in a dream-like situation. And then finally, we go to a time where two warriors are helping a god try to end the royal family. That part of the story was interesting and enjoyable. You weave in and out of these timelines and it can be difficult to follow, and frankly, I didn’t really care about the “present” timeline. It really feels like this book tried too hard to be different and interesting and just fell short for me.
One Sentence Summary: When a goddess is freed from her prison after a great deal of bloodshed, it’s up to two young men to safely shepherd her across the country and deliver a rebellion to fix her wrongs.
My thoughts:
The Spear Cuts Through Water is a love story wrapped up in a brutal, unforgiving story of a goddess seeking to redeem herself and save the world she helped break. There’s a great deal of this world’s history and mythology woven into the story, painting a brutal, sometimes terrifying world. But, oddly, enough, it’s told in a strange theater to you, the reader who gets to become a character in this book, a story that happened so far in the past that the stories hold hardly any sway anymore, making the story feel a step removed. This was a bit of a bizarre book for me, in that it was so hard to figure out what was going on with all the switching POVs and time lines, and yet I could not look away.
The Spear Cuts Through Water presents a unique and sometimes discombobulating reading experience. There are multiple time lines from past to present and everything in between, spanning untold years and generations. It was difficult to pick up whether a section was the story of a person (AKA you) in the general present who is taken to the Inverted Theater to view a staging of a story from the far past, the far past itself starring broken warrior Jun and a one armed outcast named Keema shepherding a goddess across the country, or the general near future in which the person in the present (you) have lost all your siblings to the winds and are yet stuck in the family home. Then there’s the multiple POVs, ranging from Jun and Keema to you and even to the goddess herself. There really isn’t anything to signify a transition in any way, so it’s up the reader’s brain to make the adjustment and catch up, making for a difficult reading experience.
And yet I found the story itself so compelling I couldn’t put it down. My attention was immediately arrested by Jun and Keema, though the story told in second person felt more invasive than anything else. The goddess is not an easy deity to travel with, but, in her own strange way, she has a heart, even if she’ll do anything to ensure she can redeem herself and save her world. I really felt for Jun and Keema with everything they were put through for her sake. But they did it with willing souls, believing in something greater, and finding their own story together along the way. Their love story was easy to see a mile away, but much more difficult for them to see for themselves. They really felt like two halves of a whole, worming their way into each other’s heart as they journey together and endure so many trials and tribulations. I couldn’t take my eyes away from them. The story told in second person was neatly woven through the story of Jun and Keema, but, even weeks after finishing this book, I still can’t figure out a purpose. I was not invested in it and really could care less about it. All it really did was bring me out of the story I was most invested in, and I have no idea why it was woven in. I liked that it made me feel like I was brought into the story, but the two time lines are so distant that I had a hard time reconciling the two. Still, I have to commend Jimenez for working in that second person POV as well as he did.
As confused as I was by so much of this book, I still found myself really appreciating the strong filial themes in this book. While there is a very lovely love story, the relationships that are most at the forefront are that between fathers and sons and mothers and sons. It’s really focused on family, one family in particular, and the lengths they’ll go to in order to preserve their lives and lines or to break the world enough for something new and less corrupt to be born out of it. I loved how these families, these relationships, were so complex and complicated, how so many parents and children had to make difficult decisions even as their hearts wept.
The Spear Cuts Through Water is ambitious, and I’m not sure I fully understood it and what it was trying to say and do, but I quickly found myself fully committed to this book and story. It’s absolutely brutal, painful, and unforgiving. The world is vast and dangerous with so many bad and terrible things lurking around the bend. But there’s still that love story offering a bit of softness and some much needed heart.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a review copy. All opinions expressed are my own.
The Spear Cuts Through Water was a phenomenal book. Simon Jimenez's writing style is always so enrapturing. The characters were lovable but at the same time it was easy to see their flaws. I liked how it wasn't written like most books, the story form made it more imaginable. I was not always able to lose myself in the writing but that is not necessarily the fault of the author as everyone is different in that regard. There was a lot going on in the book but it never became difficult to understand or remember. I really enjoyed the main characters and the little stories sprinkled throughout the book.
The Moon, lured from the sky generations ago, has been held a prisoner for centuries - until now. Over the course of five days, she will be escorted across the land by her grandson and a mysterious outcast - if they don't die on the journey.
The blurb of this book promises a book like nothing I've ever read before - and unlike many book blurbs, The Spear Cuts Through Water actually delivers.
I can see the narrative style being divisive - it is more complex than anything I've read before. The author uses first, second, and third person to carry different strands of the story forward, and these strands make up layers that overlap and sometimes interconnect in very surprising ways. It ends up creating a lovely chorus of voices that highlights the oral tradition and how it has played a part in so many epics.
The plot too has plenty of twists and turns and transgressive moments, and feels epic on a scale that's hard to achieve in a standalone. And it's so many things - an origin myth, the story of immigration and identity, a horror novel and a love story... it really boggles the mind. The writing, the characters, the beats of the plot are all pitch perfect.
It's a tough book to describe, but it's one that really has to be experienced.
This is my first book by Simon Jimenez but it certainly will not be my last.
I'll admit, this started out rough for me but that was entirely my issue rather than the book. I simply wasn't used to the writing style - and was surprised when it changed throughout the book. I put it down for a while until I was in the right 'mood' for it, and when I picked it up a second time, I found it a lot easier to get through. I can honestly say, this is unlike any book I've ever read before - and I mean that in the best way possible.