Weird and beautiful. When I finished I had to sit and think about so many things because it was so intense. It kept me in it the whole time

There’s a lot in this book, and on a raw, surface level, the plot was good, albeit there was a point just past the middle during the imprisonment stuff where it got bit muddy and dragged. What you need to realize about this book is how deeply connected to the author’s home and Buddhism this really is. My first read, I uhh, didn’t pick up on some of it. The prose is lovely; the characters are interesting and the ideas work really well. Once you can start slotting in the characters into the story of Buddha, right down to Buddha’s abandoned son, named Rahula, or translates literally to “fetter.” You know, like a restraint. That was my first big clue that pointed me in the right direction, and everything else fell into place after that.

I’ll let you sift through the rest. It was a bold choice from the author, if not downright brave. It adds a ton to the story, but I firmly believe the story and book itself works on its own without making these connections.

All of this is interwoven with a lot of modern history. Pandemics, revolutions, state violence and oppression, it's all there. Fetter’s existence is a strange one, trained from a young age by his mother to be a perfect weapon, but grows up to want nothing to do with the violence of his youth. He learns to come to terms with his upbringing while also hardening his own beliefs on liberation, love and destiny. All of it contrasted by his shadow, which his mother dislodged from him at a young age, but proves to be a strong allegory and ally throughout the story.

This is one of those books where you take away from it whatever you want to put into it. I’m glad there are books like this being released and authors like Vajra Chandrasekera writing these sorts of challenging books.

Based on the cover, I thought this would be more of a witchy fantasy, but it was more along the lines of a TL Huchu without the Scottish dialect.

Every time Fetter went to his group therapy, I couldn't help but think of the support group scene from Fred Claus.

I did like the band of misfits coming together to outsmart the system, and that Fetter wanted to evolve past his mother's expectations and become his own person.

This book is orders of magnitude smarter me and still i loved it. Had an inkling it might have been rooted in religious lore but did not know how heavily until after finishing. Chandrasekera's writing is so gestural and impressionist, weaving vibes and leaving it up to the reader to fill in the details. While i can understand how that may hamper the pacing and narrative thread for some audiences, it personally felt like swimming in sync with the author. I DNFed Rakesfall last month as being out of my league, but the Saint felt like a softer introduction to Chandrasekera, and i'm now greatly looking forward to picking back up with Rakesfall soon. The Saint was such a beautiful story, can't wait for what's next from this author.

Just a general delight!! Really beautifully put together novel, that played with form in some gorgeous ways. It reminded me of some of my favorite bits of calvino, but reshaped in a lush new way

This speculative fiction novel is winning awards right and left, and is the most likely winner of the Hugo Award for best novel. Honestly, I have been trying to understand the acclaim since I was given access to this last year. Interesting premise, though characters, particularly Fetter, less engaging than I was looking for.

Thanks to the publisher for the chance to read this read. I do admit that I had to DNF this read, not sure if it was the timing or if the story was not for me. The synapsis was great, and the writing style was great, but the characters and plot was not connecting with me.

I found the writing really pretentious and I really couldn't follow the plot. It was all over the place for me. And even though I like when the world building is done alongside the story, I thought that the reader is just dropped into the middle of the narrative without any explanations.

Thank you Netgalley, author, and publisher for the ARC.

I really, really don't know how to review this book. I loved it, I can tell you that. The writing was just so lush and prosaic and instantly drags you into the magical world the author created. From what I've read it's based specifically on South Asian/Sri Lankan mythology/folkolore and history, something that I knew little about going in and, although I do think having a little bit of knowledge would have helped, there were only a few parts that I had to re-read because I felt a little lost.

The character of Fetter was so intriguing and someone who I instantly empathised with. In fact every single character we meet is so intricately developed and woven into the story. It's a proper mashup of genres sci-fi and fantasy melded together expertly, alongside a pretty hefty religious aspect that plays a large part in the story as well as Fetter's character progression.

It's a slow story, one that really left me with no clue where it was going, which is usually something I dislike, but it worked with this. Chandrasekera intricately weaves all their storylines together, flitting between past and present effortlessly, and their skill for foreshadowing is truly excellent. If you like complex books, both in characterization as well as plot, ones that feature politics and religion heavily and stories that effortlessly blend the magical with the mundane you need look no further.

The Saint of Bright Doors is an incredible work of magical surrealism. In many ways, this book reminds me a lot of Robert Jackson Bennett's Divine Cities books (City of Stairs/Blades/Miracles). This books dives into the life of Fetter, a young man raised by a cruel and demanding magical mother, who has raised her son to be an assassin with the sole purpose of killing his own father. Fetter arrives in this new city that is ruled over by a corrupt class of bureaucrats who continuously enact fascist laws and launch pogroms against various classes of people they see as undesirable. Fetter finds himself entangled in a small underground resistance to this world's oppressive structures.
Fetter's father is "the perfect and the divine", a man raised to near-mythical status whose followers are propelling him into the halls of power.
There's also a bit of a prophecy regarding Fetter and his fate, not to mention the many strange fantastical elements of the city itself.
This story is weird and wacky and may not jive with many people. The world is fascinating but hazy, I never really felt a sense that I truly understood the world, and much of it seemed almost metaphorical. This book is very surreal and fascinating, but I think it has the potential to turn a lot of people off who aren't comfortable with the book's confusion.
I personally LOVED this tale, and I cannot what to see what Chandrasekara does next with his writing. He's written a very vivid and surreal book that I feel I need to reread many times to fully grasp.
This boo was a breath of fresh air, and one of my fav books of 2023.

2.75✨/5

BIPOC Author. Debut Novel. Fantasy.

First, thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy of this book. I want to state upfront that I did DNF this book at 46%.

The Saint of Bright Doors is about Fetter, a boy raised by his mother to exact revenge on his sainted father. After leaving behind his violent childhood, he moves to the city of Luriat where he meets others like him (children of a messianic parent) and is introduced to the mysterious Bright Doors, which seem to compel and confound him in equal measures.

Again, I did decide to DNF this book. That being said, I didn’t dislike this; I just don’t think it was for me. There were so many engaging elements, like the worldbuilding, the vibrancy and mixture of cultures represented, the main character’s origin story, the eccentricity/uniquity of the side characters, and the idea of a support group for unchosen messiahs. There were also some very beautiful lines in here. My primary difficulty in reading this was that I did not care about the doors, or Fetter’s personal life after arriving in the city, and I found myself mostly bored. I also felt like the main character was one of the least interesting characters introduced, and I didn’t feel invested in him. I think it might’ve been more exciting to follow several different characters. I’ll admit that, having only read 46% of this book, I can only speak for the part that I read. But for me, if I’m not invested in the primary plot, or the main character, it’s going to have to be a DNF.

Although this didn’t quite work for me, I’d still recommend this to anyone who enjoys delightfully strange side characters, political-religious machinations/scheming, a world teeming with culture and atmosphere, and the idea of a support group for unchosen messiahs ☺️!

[Note: Check Trigger Warnings]

What a strange but lovely book. It was complex but honestly a pretty fun read - one of the more unique books I've read in a while. The book admittedly did a lot of things, and I think it asks a lot of the reader so it's not one I would recommend lightly. Generally strong debut, and very interested to see where this author takes things.

The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera was a 2023 highlight. I've seen a lot of deservedly flattering comps for this novel, a story of divine destiny denied set in a fantasy Sri Lanka: my own mind was drawn to Sofia Samatar and Ursula K. Le Guin while reading, with a few of the bleak vibes I last felt in A.K. Larkwood's The Unspoken Name. For a story that really invites comparisons, however, Saint of Bright Doors is very much making its own mark on modern genre - and I'm sure there are plenty of threads of Sri Lankan and wider South Asian influence that I missed entirely.
Highlights of the reading experience for me included the way the story's geography seems to literally rearrange itself around the absurd authoritarianism of Luriat's state politics, the portrayal of gods and unknowable supernatural forces co-existing with a mundane, modern setting, and the greatest first person pronoun drop in genre history. This is an essential novel and I hope we'll be talking about it for years to come.

I’ve never read anything like The Saint of Bright Doors. Extremely unique, mesmerizing, and it surpassed my expectations at every turn. It reads like an established author’s career-defining masterpiece, rather than a debut novel.

The synopsis was intriguing but didn't do justice for the uniqueness of this story. The story is complex and yet easy to enjoy.

THE SAINT OF BRIGHT DOORS by Vajra Chandrasekera

An ARC was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. THE SAINT OF BRIGHT DOORS was be published on 11 July 2023.

After rejecting his mother's prophecy, Fetter ends up in the city of Luriat, where he finds shelter from the religious pogroms raveging his former home, a group of similarly Unchosen and love. But there is still the matter of his father, the Perfect and Kind, whose death was prophesied at Fetter's hands and the mysterious bright doors that call to him. And then, the plague hits.

Skillful, astounding, high concept debut

The Saint of Bright Doors has everything from a charismatic protagonist to prophecies, pandemics and persecution1 and does everything including nonlinear story-telling, heists and queer representation2. That can be a bit much at the beginning but following Fetter and trusting Chandrasekera's prose as he guides us makes everything easier. It is nothing short of astounding that the gorgeous, graceful juggling on display here is a debut novel.

It is hard to pin down how and why exactly everything just fits, but it does. There is something about Chandrasekera's style and way of telling the story that is reassuring, calm and confident. On top of that, there is Fetter, who, despite his unusual upringing, is immediately relatable while also seeming extremely capable. So there is no question about following him.

There is a point, about three quarters through the story, where Fetter loses himself somewhat. That sequence takes up a significant amont of page time and is obviously very deliberately written the way it is and ties into already well-established themes. However, this is also where the story begins to fray in a way that never really stops. Arguably, that is exactly the authorial intent here - the open ended conclusion to The Saint of Bright Doors certainly seems to support such an argument - but not all readers will like such a break in the story-telling and find it disappointing. Those that do, however, will admire Chandrasekera's skill and appreciate the way story and character are intertwined, especially as the later scences give more and more space to marginalised voices.

Rating

When I started reading The Saint of Bright Doors I found myself repeatedly torn between just letting Chandrasekera's prose carry me away and trying to figure out how he does it. I loved every moment of it and was immensely impressed. I would have followed Fetter anywhere. But then the wandering started and I, too, was lost and, eventually, sad that the story no longer was what I had fallen in love with. At the time it felt like a three-star book but the more I think about it, the more I think that that is really mostly - maybe only - on me and it really deserves at least four stars. The resonance and the rhythm of the story were still there, they were simply no longer aimed at me. However, there is no doubt The Saint of Bright Doors will resonate with a great many other people and I hope they will find this story and the story will find them.

“The Saint of Bright Doors” by Vajra Chandrasekera is a fantasy novel about a shadowless young man called Fetter who was raised by his mother to assassinate his father and destroy everything he stands for. However, Fetter doesn’t want the life his mother has chosen for him, and eventually flees his hometown for the bigger city of Luriat. Reasonably welcoming to refugees, Fetter joins group therapy, helps people navigate complicated bureaucracy and forms relationships all while keeping his parentage quiet. However, Luriat is a dynamic city and with visiting gods, laws in flux and mysterious Bright Doors, Fetter has to work out who he is, and who he wants to be.

This was an incredibly creative and layered story that subverts typical fantasy subgenres to create something fresh and relevant. The city of Luriat is both familiar and foreign. I really enjoyed Chandrasekera’s inclusion of modern features like emails and apartments, while maintaining subtle speculative elements. Fetter is a great character who, having tried to shed his past, tries to live as gentle a life as possible while remaining true to his loyalties. The constantly changing rules and shifting sentiments of the city evoked the kind of unstable regimes we experience here in the real world, and the scenes set in vast refugee camps were among the most hard-hitting in the book. There was some great commentary throughout this book about how quickly changes become the status quo, and how things considered ancient history may not be as distant as we believe.

The only challenge I had with this book was that with so much subterfuge, changes to the city and contested history it did at times feel like I was standing on shifting sands. While I appreciate this is reflective of many nations, especially those that persecute minorities, the additional magical elements meant that at times the logic of the book felt inconsistent.

Nevertheless, a highly original book with compelling characters and incisive messages.

a confusing and not particularly gripping novel that didn't capture me. i would encourage others to give it a go nonetheless .

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for the ARC. The Saint of Bright Doors is an intriguing story crafted with incredible prose. I enjoyed following Fetter's journey and the mystery behind the world and its cults.

I tried, I really did, I had high hopes for this but at 50% I decided it would be best to DNF. Maybe it was timing for me but I was so lost, like this book tried to do and he so many things. Maybe I'll come back to it, but I really just had no idea what was going on at any given time.

The Saint of Bright Doors is a South Asian fantasy about a man who was raised to kill one day kill his father. It never really kept my attention and I ended up dropping it before I could finish. I admired it but it just ended up not being for me.