Good book. Good characters and dialogue. Fast read and an interesting storyline. Overall a good read!

Navola by Paolo Bacigalupi was a great read. It is a great example of excellent world-building with interesting characters and plot points.

This book has been sitting in the back of my mind since I finished it. Even as I've continued on with other titles. And I think that says a lot for the quality of content given.

Ultimately, I think I would have loved this book as a mini series on television. There were so many details about the religion and politics of this Italian-esque city-state. The fantasy aspect of this novel was light, extremely light, in comparison. Though I liked where it led and the prospects it left open for future books, with the bond between Davico and the dragon. I liked the characters well enough. Davico. Celia. Well, kind of Celia. Her constant joking and the way she shifted at the end tainted the color of her character a bit for me. The cutthroat, the father, the general, the tutor. Were they good men? No. But they were well-written. This whole book was well written.

I enjoyed the fact that this book was presented as a memoir, complete with Davico trying to be as honest as possible with his potential audience. Even if he felt ashamed by what he was admitting to.

Outside the characterizations and the writing style, I think this book struggled a bit with the overall plot development. Or, perhaps, the plot progression. For the first 70% of this book, it's mostly world building, be it in the religion, the politics, or the family dynamics within Navola. But man. When it hits that last 3o% of the book, all hell breaks loose. Of course, I was reading that part in the middle of the night, so I was up for hours still, engrossed in the chaos that was the end of this book. It was tragic, fast paced, intense and finally had enough action to keep me fully engrossed. I honestly liked the last 30%. But the first chunk was a little too bogged down with the details. That's not to say those details were pointless. They create the source and motivation for the climax of the book. But I just don't know that this is a book I would have chosen to pick up if someone had given me an in-detail description of it ahead of time.

Especially if I had known before hand that this was book one in a potential series. Normally, I don't start a series if I have to worry about how long it will be before I can pick up book two. I've been burned by 10-year wait times too many times. And I'm a series binge reader. I'm not sure yet if I'll pick up book two when it does come out. I'm sure it'll be a year or more before it does and who knows what other book or series I'll be invested in by then. Will I want to rehash my way through my notes in order to get a reminder of all that transpired here? But that ending might have just been enough to pull me back in. Especially since the world has already been developed. So I think this series might have the rare chance of having a superior book two.

Ultimately, I liked this. The writing was well crafted. But it's just not quite my personal cup of tea. It's difficult for me to fully put my finger on why. It was a little dense for me, maybe? Which is why this book sits in the middle of the road for me.

A world building fantasy read. While there were times I felt myself really getting into this book, by the end, I felt I was completely off course. Character development was a big focus in this book, but unfortunately, it wasn't for me.

The book had a slow start, but I know it was building the world, characters, etc. The end really picked up and I'm curious to see how the story will expand in future books. I enjoyed the characters, but the Davico was a bit whiny. Really liked Celia and would like to see things more from her viewpoint.

I really wasn’t sure what to except from this book. The writing was great but at times it was slow .
To sum it up it was a dark magical fantasy which has world building a world of violence, family war, dragons and romance.

If you like Guy Gavriel Kay, I think this would be a good fit. This is historical fantasy that was light on the fantasy portion and follows Davico di Regulai, the son of a wealthy house. The writing style is lovely and the focus on politics and relationships typically keeps me quite engaged.

poisonous and dangerous work about powerful families in a world that very much feels like the Borgia family and other such powerful families.

Oh this book was a challenge and I was not rewarded for finishing it. But finish it I did, so that you don’t have to.

Davico lives in Navola and prepares to take the mantle of his father’s heir and that. Is. Pretty much. It.

The first small occurrence, and not even a very important one, happens about 50% into the book (I have a kindle, I was incessantly checking how far along I was). By the time anything even remotely picks up, your 85% in and even the ending is disappointing. Let’s get this over with more quickly than the book:

The good:

The world building. I can’t say I don’t know exactly what Navola and its surrounding provinces are like.

The bad:

Oh where do I start? It’s like the author enjoyed the sound of his own voice too much. He drones and drones, not separating the wheat from the chaff and oh does he BORE YOU. Not only that, but it feels like author thought, ‘hmm you know the typical story structure of a protagonist you like, an antagonist, a… plot? Well to hell with that! *I* will do it differently!’ Well the formula exists for a reason. Here we got a protagonist who is a simpering, spoiled idiot (and he doesn’t get any better), no villain, and like I said - a nonexistent plot. This isn’t Seinfeld. You can’t write a book about nothing (oh but Navola is the try hero here! Bullshit. A place is not a protagonist). So to continue, when there’s no instigating event, no why here, now, there’s also no reason for the book to exist. There isn’t a single character to care about in this book and therefore nothing to be invested in.

Oh and one last thing: don’t be fooled by the dragon’s eye on the cover. Hardly anything happens involving it. As if the author thought it would be cool to include, but it’s just an ornament. Our hero (ugh) gains nothing from it and the book ends with nary a dragon (or eyeball) in sight.

The ugly:

Well 2 uglies this time:

Writing a book about finance bros and trying to pass it off as “fascinating”, and

Calling our sexy parts root and fig. Don’t. Just… don’t. Fig off.

In this complex fantasy novel, readers enter a world where Renaissance Italy has intersected with Game of Thrones to create a complex and dangerous world where Davico di Regulai is about to take on power in Navola from his father. With his adoptive sister Celia di Balcosi on his side, Davico has yet to realize the chaos and destruction Navola’s wealth invites. A merchant powerhouse with influence around the world, Navola has created allies and enemies who seek to topple them. As he prepares for his future, Davico must take his lessons and apply them to the real world to avoid the fatal cost of failure, even if that fossilized dragon eye seems to speak to him. With so many complicated characters and political and economic powers involved in this novel, Bacigalupi has created a magnificently diverse and dangerous fantasy world for readers to discover. The characters are also flawed, complicated, and challenging figures, so readers are just as much in the dark as Davico and other characters in the novel. The relationships between characters are particularly difficult and well-developed, and they really add to the complexity of the novel and of the characters’ development in this fascinatingly complex and high-stakes novel.

Wowza. A slow burn of a novel as Mr. Bacigalupi takes his time to build every element of this story. It feels very old-fashioned, a la Dickens, but well worth the effort and time it takes to read. Once the plot twists the first time, all you can do is sit back and marvel at the masterpiece that is NAVOLA.

I'm a big fan of Bacigalupi's work, especially The Windup Girl, and when I first heard about Navola's upcoming release and that it was an epic fantasy, I had a strong feeling it would be incredible. I was wrong—it's far beyond incredible and is truly sublime. This is easily one of my new all-time favorite fantasy books and I can't stop thinking about it. To my knowledge, this is Bacigalupi's first foray into fantasy of this nature–though he's no stranger to the speculative fiction genre–and I dearly hope it won’t be his last. This is pitched as a "literary fantasy," and I feel this story fits that well, though I would also say you might enjoy it if you like historical fiction as well, as it's not heavy on the fantasy aspects (outside of a different world, though one still like our own).

Navola follows Davico di Regulai, a young boy in a Renaissance Italy-inspired fantasy world, who belongs to a high influential merchant banker family. The Navolese are known for being especially cunning, treating everything as a game of chess (or cartalegge, perhaps), and must carefully navigate and who you can and cannot trust. Throughout the tumultuous events of this novel, Davico's own loyalties and values are tested as he must navigate this labyrinthine-like world of political machinations and determine his own place in it.

Bacigalupi’s portrayal of and ability to capture and convey Davico's emotions is on another level. I consistently felt the intricate complexities of Davico’s feelings toward the people and environment he was surrounded by as if I were in his place. I experienced his frustrations, anger, triumphs, and anxieties; Bacigalupi captured it all so well that I’m just in awe thinking about it. It was easy to feel emotionally connected to the story because of how effortless it was to understand and relate to Davico at every turn. There were only a couple moments when I felt frustrated with him and thought he was being stubborn, but even then, it felt fitting.

Davico feels inadequate and is unsure if he has what it takes to be a wealthy, influential Navolese businessman like his father, and that anxiety and pressure weighs on him every day. He’s a bit naive and more good-hearted than those around him, and this is gradually challenged more and more as time goes on. I really enjoyed getting to explore this world and the myriad of complicated characters through Davico's eyes. I'm also not usually drawn to revenge stories (and Navola is not one!), but the events that occur in Navole, as well as Davico's reactions to them, are crafted so well that I felt such a deep connection to Davico's feelings and could understand in such details the mixed myriad of emotions he experienced that I could definitely understand a deep desire for revenge.

There is an exceptional cast of characters to support Davico and I was drawn into Bacigalupi's vivid portrayals of each one. Celia, Davico's adopted sister, is a bold and outspoken girl whose interactions with those around her were also interesting to observe. Additionally, we have Davico's father who is viweed by Davico as a sort of master in his own right and someone who is always making plans and moves that are calculated and essentially does not mess up. I also really loved getting to know characters like Cazzetta, Furia, Lugo, and so many more who all had distinct personalities and brought something compelling to the story in their own way.

The depth of the political intrigue in Navola is exactly what I love. All the subterfuge, secrets, and plotting reminded me a bit of the style in Kushiel's Dart where everyone's clever and duplicitous, but it feels quite subtle–until it's not, of course. Everything is also very intense, in a way that kept me hooked and desperate to find out what was going to happen next. This also applies to the no-holds-barred approach to some of the more graphic moments. I appreciated that none of the violence or intense scenes felt over the top or done for shock value, but rather I think they fit seamlessly into the story and added emphasis where it mattered most. The world-building also bolsters the political intrigue by providing us with enough glimpses into the world outside of Navola, but doesn't delve too deeply into any other location just yet, though I'm holding out hope that we'll get to explore more of this rather harsh world in a future book.

Additionally, I loved how incredibly consistent the pacing and writing style were. We follow Davico's first person POV and there's no jumping between characters, huge leaps in time, and chapters often pick up right where the last one left off. This may not sound like a big deal, but it kept me from feeling fatigued the usual jumps and shifts in time that are in so many fantasy novels these days. (And don't get me wrong, I don't dislike multiple POVs and time jumps at all--some of my favorite books have them--but sometimes you just want something more straightforward). I didn’t have to constantly be on my toes to remember where everyone was or what time period we were in, and it made the world feel that much more vivid and alive.

Lastly, I should mention the fantasy elements—beyond the world itself—particularly the dragon eye that features prominently on the cover. I can’t say much without giving away spoilers, but it's one of the most intriguing aspects of the story, despite the fact that it doesn't technically play an overly large role through much of the story (and don't take that to mean the rest of the story isn't intriguing, the eye is just really cool to me). While the entire book fascinated me, this eye grabbed me from the start, hinting at much deeper layers of mystery and power in the world than I could have predicted. Bacigalupi has crafted something that feels equally mysterious, dark, and full of unknown potential.

Overall, I think it's very clear that I loved Navola, and it is of course getting five stars from me. If you like historical fiction or thoughtfully written fantasy full of intrigue and strong characters, then you must give this one a read.

Let me start off with I'm rating this book 3.5 stars but I am rounding up to 4 stars. When I first read the premise of this book I was instantly intrigued. As I started reading the book though I was quickly losing interest. The pacing of the book was definitely one of the biggest reasons I was losing interest in reading the book. The pacing was obnoxiously slow for the first 3/4 of the book and the last 1/4 it really picked up and went too quickly. I felt as if I was continually reading and waiting for something to happen and being disappointed until the very end when things did happen.

The plot lost me at some points as well. I did love the political intrigue and all of the character dynamics. But I think too much time was spent on Davico's upbringing which took up more than half the book. There were many scenes that in my opinion did not offer anything to the running plot and seemed to be more filler scenes. I was also disappointed as I was expecting this to be a book with dragons and the dragons would be a big part of the book and they weren't. That may have been my fault as I did not read the description closely and got excited when I saw the word dragon. The political world does give Medici Family history and like I said before I liked that aspect but Davico was just not a character a cared to see navigate that type of dog eat dog world with warring famlies.

All in all I did enjoy reading this book but I don't think I'd pick it up again. This book is a standalone but the way it ends does leave it open to continue the story. If the story were to continue I'm not sure if I'd continue with it.

Thank you NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor | Knopf for this ARC Copy!

This book is not really what I expected going into a dragon book but I was pleasantly surprised. It is more of a Literary Historical Fiction that is heavy on the political intrigue. I also really enjoyed the renaissance Italy type of setting, it made for a really fun and immersivity detailed world.

Wow, what a ride! I went in thinking Game of Thrones but this is so much more than that. Bacigalupi has given us a world of violence, family, war, betrayal, dragons, love, and treachery. This is a coming-of-age story that absolutely delivers.

Davico is a young boy growing up in a wealthy banking family, lending money and writing contracts - and basically owning people. His father is a no-nonsense and fearful man who is trying his best to raise his son to take over the business. But Davico, although very knowledgeable in contracts and deals, does not know all of the secrecy that surrounds him. And he does not want to take over as heir. He would love nothing more than to be in the gardens or riding his horse in the fields. But his name day is coming fast and this brings to light all of the traitorous people and dealings that are hiding in the shadows. And did I mention the dragon eye? The one on the cover? This eye becomes a tether that connects Davico to a side of him nobody else can see. A magic that only Davico can sense, but one that leads him to all he is to become.

His father's guards are sent to "take care" of a family one night and they bring back one of the daughters as hostage. Celia becomes like a sister to Davico and they grow up together - eventually becoming something Davico cannot seem to live without. With Celia he believes he can handle anything thrown at him, but the reality of the situation his family is in becomes too much, and life explodes around them. This story has so many layers and I am not lying when I say I literally gasped out loud and covered my mouth in shock at one point. I may even have teared up and the ending just floored me. I could read this over and over.

This story is beautifully written and gives us so much detail. I admit there are parts that are a little too much detail and were on the slow side, but I loved it so much. This has a lot of violence and a little sex, but it only added to the story for me. Fantastic story!

I really enjoyed this book. Loved the world of Navola and the characters that resided there. Loved all the plot twists. I love it when an author keeps me guessing. Would love to read more about Navola.

Unfortunately this was a DNF for me. I made it 165/560 pages, and there just wasn’t enough that felt compelling. I’m sure there are people who would like or love this — the prose is beautiful and he’s building great characters — but the pace was too slow and the focus was too political/historical for my taste.

Navola offers a richly detailed, Italianate fantasy world that is as evocative as it is frustrating. The novel's setting, reminiscent of a city-state Italy with its intricate politics and vivid descriptions, is intriguing, yet the execution falls short. The protagonist, Davico, is a deeply unremarkable character whose internal struggles and lack of agency make the first half of the book a slow and laborious read. While Bacigalupi's prose is smooth and his world-building impressive, the story's slow pace and limited fantasy elements—highlighted by the barely utilized dragon's eye—make it a mixed experience. The latter parts of the book hold promise and are more engaging, but the lengthy buildup makes it hard to fully appreciate the payoff. Despite its shortcomings, Bacigalupi's skill as a writer keeps the door open for potential improvement in future installments.

This wasn't what I was expecting but interesting. Too involved with world building to flesh out the story to immerse you which was necessary but at the same time wearying. I love historical stories real or fictional, but the length and amount of detail is why I much prefer watching sagas rather than reading them.


Thank you to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor | Knopf for providing this eARC for my honest and unbiased opinion.

I was not able to finish reading this book before the archive date, and therefore will not be leaving feedback on this title.
Star rating to match average.