This was really bizarre and dense - I felt bogged down with details and information that was hard to understand. I couldn’t connect to any of the characters - it was too weird for me.

The West Passage is a charming debut fantasy that impresses with its prose and creativity. The story follows two characters, Kew and Pell, as they come to terms with their new circumstances and epithets they may or may not be ready to mantle.

This book encourages you to stretch your imagination to dive headfirst into this whimsical world. Every element of this story, from characters to architecture, is surprising and deeply creative.
It often feels like the plot is a secondary element to the setting, but in the moments when the story reveals a new element of the mysteries being unraveled, you’re in for a real treat. That being said: come for the vibes, stay for the story.

The writing itself is reminiscent of classic fantasy stories and is rich with imagery that brings you into the dusty storerooms in Grey to the rancid towers of Yellow. The narration is full of humor and does a great job of pacing the journey that our characters are on.

Overall, this book really works for me. A classic fantasy journey in an unexpected setting will always hit in my opinion. If you love time-honored fantasy elements but yearn to see them in a new light, this is the book for you.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tordotcom for an advanced copy!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The West Passage was a great story! The story was so much fun, I loved the characters, and it has some of the best world building I’ve read in a while!

This is definitely one you have to pay attention to as you’re reading, but it’s so worth it. From what I’ve heard, I need to get my hands on a physical copy, and I can’t wait to reread this one!

Overall, I really enjoyed this one!
With some of the most vivid writing and imaginative worldbuilding I've read in a while, this is definitely a book that will stay with me for a while. The worldbuilding was my favourite - the story takes place in a huge palace that's ruled by five ladies, each Lady inhabiting a tower of the palace with its own strange customs and rules. Exploring this palace through the eyes of some fantastic characters was truly a treat.
The casual queerness was wonderful too. This is how you do it right imo!



What dragged it down a bit for me was the last 10-15%. The plot got too confusing and intricate with the jumping pov's, so I had a hard time understanding what was going on with the Ladies. I think the point was to have mystery surrounding them, but with the way the plot went in the end this mysterious aspect just created confusion for me.

Still, highly recommend if you love fantasy that's original!

Well this is a hard one review and not just because the review copies lack the illustrations (gorgeous from what I've seen online). It's one of those books that is light on plot and frankly character development but instead focuses on the atmosphere and the world. I'm not actually sure what happened in this book to be fair especially the second half.

The West Passage is a book about decay, about being children in a world long-past its prime, stuck remembering a former glory while everything rots and starves. It's one of those stories where there's a looming threat (the Beast) but no one wants to do anything about it except the children (oh climate change when you get us). It's a pretext for political manipulations or power grabs. In a way the West Passage has the whimsical tone of a children's media when the young hero is seeking help and encounters adult after adults who are vey busy with their own (implied useless) tasks (like teaching monkeys how to read) and who can't do anything for them.

It's such a hard book to rate because some people will likely find it boring and not engaging and some people will love the detailed worldbuilding. It's well-written and bizarre, filled with Eldritch looking ladies whose roles are unclear and I'm still thinking about the death and decay, the coals of a spent fire, the mother of ashes. It's the children with no future, provided that there are still children.

I'm glossing over the concept of sacrifice, the mellified man, the fact that you give your entire self to the position (name and pronouns assigned to you).

I've noticed the "queer" tag on Goodreads and I would say it's in the form of a queernormative world: there is a nonbinary side character, one character is assigned pronouns at title, there is no romance or couples mentioned in the book.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Tor Publishing for the e-arc of this title.

Boy that was a wild ride. What an epic quest of a fantasy book. It’s so hard to explain. The West Passage so fantastical and full of the weird and wonderful.
It took me a while to get into it but when I did I found I couldn’t stop reading it.
This was quite outside of the realm of what I usually read, but it did not disappoint.

If Kafka’s Schloss and Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea had a baby, this would be the deeply strange, slightly cannibalistic, eldritch Lady they would birth.

Not much is outright explained in this novel and many questions are left unanswered, but if you’re open to it, and trust in the narrative, The West Passage will introduce you to a fever dream of a world at times wondrous and even beautiful…but mostly violent and horrific.

Indeed, the main beauty comes not from the setting itself, which is unforgiving at the best of times, but from the main characters who, in spite of such surroundings, try their best to carve a path of justice and kindness. At its heart, The West Passage is a coming-of-age story, a literal journey through which we get to experience the Palace, a sprawling marvel in decay. It is at times extremely lonely and quite often tragic, but I at least was deeply invested in our protagonists, their quests and, most importantly, the way they both began to question their world.

The West Passage is heavy on vibes, episodic, but there is definitely a plot and nearly every time it reared its head it got a gasp out of me. The book might not be for everyone, it’s weird, occasionally gory, and not at all interested in whether you’re able to keep up, but it was exactly my kind of jam.

Many thanks to Tordotcom and Netgalley for the e-ARC which I was delighted to receive and even more so to read in exchange for an honest review.

This was extraordinarily bizarre, and very, very good.

When I started this, it was with an ebook ARC I got from the publisher. It was, I was sad to see, not illustrated, and it was painfully clear to me that I was missing a lot. So a big *thank you* to the people at Reactor/Tordotcom for answering my plea and getting me a physical ARC with the illustrations.

Speaking of illustrations: [here are some examples of the artwork](https://reactormag.com/excerpt-and-art-reveal-from-the-west-passage-jared-pechacek/), along with commentary by Pechaček on where he drew his inspiration from, and the text of the first chapter of the book. There is an illustration at the beginning of each chapter, almost a visual epigraph, depicting (very stylistically) a scene that takes place within that chapter. There is also a full-page illustration at the beginning of each book within *The West Passage*. Having tried to read it without those, the book is definitely missing something (sorry, audiobook readers).

The protagonists of this are Pell and Kew, two young inhabitants of Grey Tower thrust into positions of power and responsibility before they are ready. Grey Tower is part of “the palace,” which has no other name that is ever mentioned. It is a sprawling city, more than half decayed into ruin, dominated by the Grey, Yellow, Blue, Red, and Black Towers. The city is ruled by the Ladies, strange unknowable beings of wildly varying appearance and unclear but potent powers. As happens every few centuries, the Beast is rising to threaten the palace. Pell and Kew both, and separately, leave the familiar cloisters of the Grey, looking to reach the palace’s rulers in the Black Tower and get help.

Of course it is not so straightforward as that, and as Pell and Kew go off on their respective quests they travel far and wide over the breadth of the palace. They meet many very bizarre things; not only Ladies, but the many and varied inhabitants of the palace, before making their way back to Grey to confront the rising of the Beast.

The illustrations set the tone: Fantastical and mysterious, with a definite feeling of the medieval. It’s never entirely clear what is going on, or why. The strangeness of the palace is normal to Pell and Kew, and they don’t really feel the need to comment on it - it can take some time to figure out just how bizarre it all really is. Not a great book for those who like clear answers and explanations, because you’re basically going to get none. And, fair warning, this book has a lot of sadness in it.

I would call this “New Weird” if I had to pick a genre, but that doesn’t feel quite right. Possibly just because I associate with Jeff VanderMeer, and his stuff all has much more sinister/dangerous overtones than this book does. It also reminds me quite a lot of Walter Moers’ Zamonia books, though with more sinister/dangerous overtones than those books have. But slotting this into a genre just feels wrong, regardless. It’s too unique.

I think this is a love-it-or-hate-it book. I am giving it an easy 5 stars. But if someone were to say to me, “I read it, and WTF was that?” I would understand. Looking forward to hearing others’ opinions when it comes out this summer.

A profoundly weird and stunningly beautiful book. it embraces its own beauty and strangeness without apologies or superfluous explanations. I don't know how to properly explain the surreal, phantasmagorical, unsettling majesty of this book. It's like the unholy and gorgeous love child of Wizard of Oz (on acid), Alice in Wonderland, The Green Knight (movie), Piranesi, and the works of Hieronymus Bosch. All of this is made even better because the writer embraces the work's beauty and strangeness without apologies or superfluous explanations.

I really liked this book, and I think the world-building and character creation worked great together. I found them to be dynamic and very entertaining to read. I was looking forward to this book and it did not disappoint, I can't wait for it to come out so that I can have a physical copy of it

The West Passage is difficult to describe, it has a descriptive and particular style, the voice is whimsical and poetic at times, gothic and archaic at times, medieval and flowery at times, and occasionally modern. The story takes turns between two characters on separate but linked quests through a world that at times feels like Alice's journey in Wonderland, meeting characters each in their own daily life that while to readers may seem bizarre to the extreme, but to the characters journeying through just another day in their world. The world is a character in itself and readers will start to delight in every twist of the passage for what new strange vision will appear around the corner. What daily drama our characters will stumble into and how they'll get out of it, and ultimately if their quests will be rewarded.
Readers who enjoyed Armed in Her Fashion by Kate Heartfield will find the same medieval imagery paired with gore and horror and twisted celestial imagery is employed extremely well in this novel. Folks who enjoy playing Elden Ring will enjoy the similar worldbuilding and imagery.

Beautifully written and different from what I’m used to. Definitely complex and imaginative with hefty world-building. Highly recommend this.

The first 20% or so of this book I was really excited. It was atmospheric, interesting, and just had excellent vibes. The world of the ladies was unique and I was interested in learning more. But then, it just kept going. More parts of the world were introduced that just felt kind of random and I never got invested in the characters or the plot. But I kept reading because it was COOL!

This was a mix of Jim Henson's Labyrinth and Gideon the Ninth

The Labyrinth for its whimsical nature of things
And Gideon the Ninth for it's state of decay with knowledge lost to the centuries.
Both with that morbid sense of curiosity

It has that sense of wanderlust where you want to explore the world more and more. The narration made you feel like a fly on the wall, following the main characters on their respective journeys.

It's a wonderful tale through and through and I was hooked. There were times it was dark and I wanted to look away but your eyes can't leave the page.

This isn't for people looking for a quick epic fantasy read. This book is for the ones that love to be left wondering. To be left with more questions than answers, and I mean that in the best way.

Cons:
The narration/POV flip felt like it came out of nowhere, and maybe that is on me and I missed it somewhere. But suddenly it changed to the narrator talking to the reader. Which is fine, I just didn't know it was written that way until about 30% in.
Also I REALLY needed a map. And I hope it gets one in the physical copy. I was so so lost I couldn't keep up sometimes and had decided to just skim over any parts where it talked about directions 🥲

Thank you so much to Netgalley for this eARC. All thoughts are my own.
I cannot wait to add a physical copy of this book to my library

This is a fantasy book unlike any other! All fantasy readers will enjoy the creative and unusual world created here. When a palace in not protected correctly, anyone can find a way in. Snow in summer and crops fail leaving mass hunger. The mother of Gray house is the only one that can save the kingdom!

If you are a fan of very "different" fantasy, this one is for you! The world-building is beautiful, in-depth and unique (reminiscent of The Fifth Season world-building depth) The writing itself is gorgeous, but a tad bit wordy for my personal liking. The story was very complex and I did have to re-read passages several times in places but that is more to do with my exhaustion than the book. I would definitely recommend annnotating this one but overall it was quite enjoyable!

I enjoyed this book for it's originality but it wouldn't be a book I'd pick up again. The writing, dialogue, characters and world building were all amazingly done I just had a hard time getting hooked enough to make it a book worthy of not putting down. The West Passage would definitely be a 4 or 5 star for the right type of reader, it just wasn't for me.

**Thank you to the publisher for the e-ARC**

"The west passage" is book unlike any I have so far read. It's full of mysticism, decaying Palace and wonder. It doesn't move quickly, but isn't still either. Things happen and we bear witness to a changing world, through the eyes of a few people living said change. There are weird creatures and things in this book, described in a beautiful way and giving that otherwordly sense. It was tremedously enjoyable in a special way. Not really character driven nor plot driven, but more world driven, if that make sense, with pieces of a age old secret being revealed bits by bits until we reached the end and the whole picture is revealed.
The world building is extraordinary, filled with details, weird and enrapturing. So rich. Cruel yet magical, not falling into a black and white frame of mind, the complexity woven everywhere. There is a sense of absurd that I rarely encounter in fantasy, making this book really refreshing and interesting, along with how the two main characters are traveling though the story, going on various quest. The tension is there, but like a humming in the background.
"The west passage" was thoroughly enjoyable in its originality, I hope it will reach as many reader, eager for this kind of atmosphere, as possible.

The palace is the entire world: five towers dedicated to politics (Black), war (Red), making (Blue), taking (Yellow), and duty (Grey). Each is ruled by eldritch embodiments called Ladies, whose periodic wars over the throne are as awesome as they are catastrophic. And one Beast, waiting to rise again to devour everything. To stop the cycle of destruction, two teens from Grey, Pell (later Yarrow) and Kew (later Hawthorn), are abruptly thrust into adulthood and forced to make sense of the literal and figurative ruins of their society. They are only marginally successful.

The West Passage pairs medieval European imagery with an Alice in Wonderland gone overtly violent. The oddness of dream logic dominates this book. It's never quite clear (to the reader or the characters) how spaces within the palace relate to one another. And causes need not match effects as expected. The narratorial focus is similarly unbalanced, with copious descriptions of the palace structure and the history of its decorations but no more than an off-hand comment when a character has a spoon instead of a face or changes gender (physically?) in their sleep. When combined with experimental writing strategies, this silence sometimes makes it difficult to envision the world or follow the plot. In the same vein, this book is entirely about the journey (and the vibes); the end leaves quite a few plot points unresolved.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, but it needs a patient reader with no expectations about how a story "should be structured." It will probably resonate best with people who liked The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez, The Border Keeper by Kerstin Hall, and/or The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon.

Thanks to Tordotcom and Netgalley for providing an advanced copy of this e-book in exchange for an honest review.

There is no denying that the context and premise of this book is out of this world. Of course it is, just look at this masterpiece of a cover! Reading this book, I had to let go of all my pre-conceived notions of what a fantasy book should be like, because this is no ordinary fantasy story. It is a story with the main focus on the journey, the dialogues, the relationships, rather than the ending. It is a mix of contrasting concepts coexisting: the sweet and the dark, the colourful towers and the grey one, the emergency of the beast and the search for purpose, the love of friendship and the pain of loss.

It did get a bit too weird for me sometimes though. We always know what the main mission is and what our main characters are fighting for, but it usually stays in the background while we accompany them in travelling the world, meeting new friends, and learning more about the lore. I couldn't wrap my head around some of the concepts and developments which therefore impacted my enjoyment of the book and its fast/slow pace. This book not only makes use of the absurd but relishes in it, like a delicious honey (wink wink). I totally get other people mentioning Alice in Wonderland when referring to this book, because it does feel like that sometimes, but even more so. I did often wonder what this story would look and feel like in a movie or series format, with all of the world building, the different creatures, the towers, the bridges, and so much more!! Can we please bring back illustrations in books? That would be amazing here.

So if reading a book that is absurdly weird/magical, where characters can come in all shapes, sizes, and genders, with its own political system and lore, as well as a hint of adventure to save the world as we know it while also enjoying the ride while we do, sounds interesting to you then you should give this book a try. Also if you love world building because this was like nothing I've read before.

Thank you NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!