This was my first time reading a book by Paolo Bacigalupi, so I had no expectations about what this story would be like other than thinking it may be similar to the style of Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings--both of which I have enjoyed. Navola is definitely written in the style of an epic fantasy, which I enjoyed. The author did a good job of developing and creating this complex world. There was way more focus on the political and social aspect of the world than on anything mythical, magical or dragon-related, which was a disappointment since that was a large part of ny interest in this story. Having assassins was helpful and kept the story somewhat interesting. There's a lot of description, which definitely affected the pacing of the story as well and, at times, I found myself struggling to stay interested in what was going on. Overall, I enjoyed aspects of this book and it is a solid 3.5 stars.

I really don't have a lot to say about this book. When I first read the synopsis, it sounded interesting to me. And then when I was finally getting around to actually reading it, it sounded less interesting and I wondered why I would even request to read this book. But, I made a commitment so I was going to read it.

There really wasn't anything wrong with this book other than me. I don't think I was the intended audience which made reading this book nearly impossible. I got a few chapters in before I realized I wouldn't be able to finish it because it just wasn't that interesting to me and I felt like it took a lot of brain power to read.

There was a lot of world-building and history in this book. It was a slow read and I didn't get to any action before I gave up. You would probably like this book if you like Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, etc. but be warned that it doesn't have mythical beings in it like other series do. It's like those books but without dragons, elves, dwarves, etc.

I decided to give it two stars because I feel like 1 stars are reserved for my worst-of-the-worst that I can't finish because they are so bad. And 3 stars are ones that I didn't necessarily love but didn't hate but also that I actually finished. I know a 2-star rating doesn't seem fair because it's my fault for picking up a book that I might not like, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do.

I am a longtime fan of Paolo Bacigalupi. Pump Six, The windup Girl and The Water Knife are favorite reads. He also writes YA fiction like Ship Breaker that, though well written, is less appealing as I am definitely not a young adult. Navola will go into that category. If YA is something you love, then read this book. I got through enough of it to recognize the qualities that are characteristic of the author.

This was a fantastic book, I greatly enjoyed reading it. The story follows Davico di Regulai as he prepares to take over Navola upon his father’s death. Davico doesn’t seem to be well-suited to be in the position of ruler, he doesn’t share the same level of political planning and cunning as his father and grandfather before him. He always seems to be a step or two behind everyone else. Nevertheless, he will soon be expected to navigate the plots of Navola, having to decide who to trust while looking for hidden plots in every corner. Davico isn’t totally alone however, he leans greatly on the help of his adopted sister Celia di Balcosi, whose family came to ruin at the hands of Davico’s. His father also holds a powerful relic in his possession, the eye of a dragon. Davico will be tested sooner than he thinks, and his fate will depend upon his ability to navigate the twisted realm of Navola, how his sister Celia truly feels about him and the di Regulai family, and the power of the dragon’s eye.
I thought this was a fresh, unique story full of political intrigue and plots similar to Game of Thrones. Only, I liked this story better. The author makes use of adding in words and phrases in Italian, or what seems like Italian, throughout the book. I thought this really helped to immerse myself into the world of Navola, and as I am a language person, I loved the integration of another language in the book. The words and phrases are easy enough to understand through context, so no worries on being confused. With the twists and turns that this plot takes, it kept me guessing until the very end. There were quite a few things that I really thought were going to turn out differently, or that characters would make comebacks that never happened. I liked being surprised in that way. To me, a story is no good if you can figure it out before it’s over. I only gave this one 4 stars because I still had quite a few questions at the end, so I’m hoping there may be another tale of Navola coming to answer some of those for me. That being said, the ending is NOT a cliffhanger, and it is still a satisfying end.

Navola is a novel written in the style of an epic fantasy, with the slightly stilted-seeming use of language often used in such novels. It's a complicated and detailed story, set in what appears to be a pseudo-Italy, complete with a spattering of Italian words. It is the story of Davico di Regulai, the youngest scion of a powerful family, one that controls its environment through finances.

I wanted to like this novel. It has many of the components novels I enjoy have: interesting characters, a rising plot, a good backstory, and so on. But somehow, my interest in this story never really gelled, and I had to force myself to finish it. I don't think it's an issue with the book itself; it just didn't catch my attention. It's labeled as a fantasy, and there is a dragon's eye that plays a pivotal role in the plot, but for the most part, this is a pseudo-historical/political fiction novel, based on society I'm simply not interested in. There is some beautiful imagery, and some interesting plot twists, but the basic story is one betrayal after another, and many of the things that happen seem less like the machinations of world builders and more akin to the emotional manipulations of middle school students; many characters assign their motivations to a need for revenge based on slights that appear to have been blown out of proportion. I imagine that there are quite a few people this novel would appeal to, but I am not one of them. Recommended for older teens and adults; not suitable for younger readers.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Navola is a city that is mostly controlled by the di Regulai family, bankers with so much fortune over the generations that they have influence far and wide. Their powerful patriarch is an expert at reading people - called "faccioscuro" - discerning lies and reading hidden intentions. His son Davico is more of a reluctant heir, he would rather be a physician recognizing plants, or spending time with his pony and dog. He is uneasy at what is expected of him to lead this empire and way too trusting of those around him. Will he learn to lead, or will his enemies take advantage of him? It feels as if you are immersed in the Italian Renaissance with this book, especially with the fake Italian words throughout, and I can definitely see why it is compared to a mashup of the Godfather and Game of Thrones. There are similarities to Dune as well.

This book is much more about politics and world building than anything mythical or dragon related, despite the dragon eye that enters the story. Just know going in not to expect magic, but more of a historical novel with assassins and intrigue. It was an interesting study of people and their natures. We follow the son's viewpoint the whole time, and I spent the book right alongside Davico trying to figure out who could be trusted and who could not. Despite all his training, he is often naive and slow on the uptake, but his character does develop as the book goes on. The beginning has a few scenes with a lot of information and family background thrown at the reader, but once Davico approaches his nameday halfway through the action starts to pick up more. I would say there are beautifully written scenes, parts where nothing happens, and some pretty gory violence.

I recommend this book if you enjoy politics, schemes, and books that contain a lot of description without constant action. It is not a quick read, but it is well written. I am guessing more books will be added to this story, and I would definitely read them. I feel invested in the characters and would enjoy seeing where it goes from here. There are some dark and violent scenes included. I received this book as an ARC from Netgalley for my opinions.

I reallt enjoyed this new world by Bacigalupi. The world building and rich history was superb. Once the story reallt got rolling I couldnt put this book down.

Navola is the first title I've read by Paolo Bacigalupi. It's a historical fantasy, with the blurb comparing the political scheming to Game of Thrones and The Godfather. I found the world building interesting, if a bit dry. That was more or less the way I felt about Navola as a whole. It was interesting and there was the germ of something there but I feel like it took too long to develop into anything, something many books of its ilk suffer from. This felt comparable to Leigh Bardugo's The Familiar. It tried to have a rich setting but the story suffered for it.

Bacigalupi crafts an immersive novel with incredible world building. It is breathtaking in its lyrical flow as it creates the story of a young man growing up in a rich and powerful family that dominates the local city state via banking and commerce. He is the central character as the author portrays his growth as a young man, uncertain about his future and how he fits into the expectations of his family and community. The novel is to be savored as the world is built and its history revealed. Slow and steady undercurrents of unrest and betrayal develop as hidden agendas are revealed, building to quick and intense crescendos as the characters rise, fall and rise again. This historical fantasy novel is not be missed!

I had very high hopes for this book. I went into this expecting a coming of age high fantasy with some level of dragons. Unfortunately, this book was just not for me.

The story started off very slow and it felt like it took a very long time for it to feel like the story was going anywhere. Once things did start to happen, it became very violent and had sexual scenes that were just not my cup of tea. I do not mind violence or spice in my books, but this was just too over the top for me and it did not feel like it added anything to the story.

I also could not connect with the main character. It was supposed to be a coming of age story so I expected him to advance and grow as a character. He felt incredibly naïve throughout the entire book and I think I may have enjoyed this more if it was written from a different character’s POV.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a complimentary copy of this book. I leave this review voluntarily and all opinions are my own.

***Thank you to Knopf for providing a copy of Navola via NetGalley. My review, however, is based on my experience listening to the audiobook and contains my honest thoughts and feelings.***

I was so excited to read Navola. Unfortunately, so many things about the book just did not work for me. I lost count of the number of times I fell asleep while listening to the audiobook. The first half of the book was so boring. I considered DNFing it multiple times because I just did not care about the characters or what was happening to them. The second half of the story did pick up and held my interest a bit more. However, many of the problems I had with the first parts remained. I did enjoy the style of the writing, though, which is one of the main things that kept me going.

One of my biggest gripes about Navola was the lack of world-building. I was looking forward to learning about a world inspired by Renaissance Italy. There just wasn't much depth to the world-building. I never got a good sense of what the city of Navola was like or how it differed from the other cities. I was also so excited to learn about the dragon's eye. Frustratingly, it ended up being nothing more than a glorified paperweight for most of the story. In general, I just didn't find the world very interesting, which was a big disappointment.

Navola also promised lots of political scheming with the comparisons to Game of Thrones. It managed to disappoint on that front, too. There was plenty of scheming in the story. The reader just didn't get to see any of it take place. There was only one POV in this entire novel, and he was nothing but a pawn of the real major players. So, we ended up seeing the results of all the political maneuvering without getting to experience any of it firsthand. It left me very frustrated with the story at times, and I often wished there had been at least one other POV.

It didn't help that I felt absolutely nothing for Davico other than mild annoyance. The story focused so intensely on his coming-of-age and the mundanities of his life, especially in the first half. I found him to be spoiled, naïve, and extremely ungrateful for his privileges. I wish I could say my opinion of him changed by the end, especially given how dramatically his entire life fell apart. However, I still could not make myself root for him. I did love his dog, though.

Overall, Navola was just a miss for me. There were two major problems that kept this book from meeting my expectations: the lack of depth to the world-building and the singular POV being outside the political action. It didn't help that the main character was just not someone I cared about. All of those factors coalesced into an extremely slow, and often boring, tragedy that I had no stake in. Therefore, I rate Navola 3 out of 5 stars, which is frankly me being generous.

I received an ARC via NetGalley for "Navola", in exchange for an honest review.

I'm a big fantasy reader so I was excited about this. I love ASOIAF and I have yet to find a series to top it. This book is very political. I had a hard time with the main POV as I found him to be boring and even frustrating at times. I do think this book sets up the next books in the series very well so I will read the next.

Real Rating: 3.5* of five

<b>The Publisher Says: From the <i>New York Times</i> best-selling author of <i>Wind-Up Girl</i> and <i>The Water Knife</i> comes a sweeping literary fantasy about the young scion from a ruling class family who faces rebellion as he ascends to power.</b>

"You must be as sharp as a stilettotore’s dagger and as subtle as a fish beneath the waters. This is what it is to be Navolese, this is what it is to be di Regulai."

In Navola, a bustling city-state dominated by a handful of influential families, business is power, and power is everything. For generations, the di Regulai family—merchant bankers with a vast empire—has nurtured tendrils that stretch to the farthest reaches of the known world. And though they claim not to be political, their staggering wealth has bought cities and toppled kingdoms. Soon, Davico di Regulai will be expected to take the reins of power from his father and demonstrate his mastery of the games of Navolese knowing who to trust and who to doubt, and how to read what lies hidden behind a smile. But in Navola, strange and ancient undercurrents lurk behind the gilt and grandeur—like the fossilized dragon eye in the family’s possession, a potent symbol of their raw power and a talisman that seems to be summoning Davico to act.

As tensions rise and the events unfold, Davico will be tested to his limits. His fate depends on the eldritch dragon relic and on what lies buried in the heart of his adopted sister, Celia di Balcosi, whose own family was destroyed by Nalova’s twisted politics. With echoes of Renaissance Italy, <i>The Godfather</i>, and <i>Game of Thrones</i>, <i>Navola</i> is a stunning feat of world-building and a mesmerizing depiction of drive and will.

<b>I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review</b>: Most reading my reviews will know who Author Bacigalupi is, and might have read at least one of his SF novels. If not, they're readily borrowable. They're worth reading because the author has a deft hand at characterization and a solid world-building technique. All of those skills are on display here. He's using them on an Italian-Renaissance fantasy world that feels like historical fiction with fantasy elements lightly sprinkled on.

What works is the eternal verity of identity formation in opposition to one's family's expectations; what doesn't is the great, oversized length.

Knopf offers the ebook at $14.99. I'd borrow it.

Rating: 4/5
I received an eARC for my honest opinion.

This was my first Paolo Bacigalupi book, I didn’t know what to expect from it. I just read the synopsis and requested it, and I am happy that I did because this will not be my last book of Bacigalupi.

In this book you will hear the story of Davico, told by him about what happened in his life to bring him where he is today. Now some of you might say that it's not really a fantasy but I can see how it was, but most definitely is more of historical fiction in it. It does start out a little slow and you won’t find any action until you hit the 50% mark in the book, Davico’s Name Day celebration. Then you will see non-stop action, a lot more of the plot coming together and more questions getting answered but you will still have a few that aren’t answered, and the ending will leave you feeling like there will be an open door for more adventures. I thought the author had a beautiful way of writing, you will be able to flow through the book and know/see what is going on. I thought he handled the politics of noble families in the Italian Renaissance era. I found Bacigalupi writing about what went on and the workings to be easy to read and even though the plot was slower at the times it does help to make an understanding of why this is happening to Davico.

The characters in this book were great, they were developed throughout the book. I thought Davico did a lot of growth, sadly due to the circumstances that led him to the life that he must live now. You will see endless bloodshed, murder, rape and a lot of revenge. I would say more but I would spoil parts of the book and I don’t want to do that.

I am really hoping that we will get another book to see more adventures from Davico and to get more answers from him as well.

I want to thank NetGalley and Knopf for the opportunity to review this book.

I was intrigued by the book cover to really dive right in. I love historical fiction and fantasy. Unfortunately, I really didn’t connect with the story due to the first part of the book being a little too slow for me.

Thank you to Knopf Doubelday Publish Group and Netgalley for an ARC. All opinions are my own.

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf Publishing for the eARC.

A lush and atmospheric historical fantasy, densely plotted and richly detailed -- but in the end it feels very empty, as if all that detail and atmosphere were colorful tapestries hanging in an abandoned palazzo. The narrator/protagonist Davico is deceived by others time after time, and deceives himself time after time, and yet after 500+ pages never learns any lessons from his repeated failures or changes his behavior.

This novel feels similar in some ways to the novels of GGK, but without the lyricism, optimism and catharsis.

As authors continue to invent historical fantasy worlds, why must they continue to inflict sexual violence upon their female characters? It is beyond tiresome.

Navola is a purported “literary” fantasy set in a city-state dominated by powerful merchant families. The story follows Davico di Regulai, a young member of one such powerful family, as he navigates the political struggles of Navola, and as he prepares to take over his family's [accounting] empire. Davico faces rebellion and intrigue, with his fate apparently intertwined with both a dragon relic and his adopted sister, Celia.

The opening is weighed down by all the world-specific terms and names, based heavily on an Italian-Latin root system. It’s a lot to take in at once and hard to keep track of them all. It doesn’t NOT feel like when someone in a comedy is speaking nonsense pseudo-Spanish by amending each and every English word with -o. It’s unfortunate that it’s so liberally applied, because it gives an easy springboard into the desire to skim-read.

The narrative style is also somewhat unusual, though I feel like we’re seeing this more and more often, as of late, as the author directly addresses the reader with “you.” This choice might work in certain contexts, but here it adds to the overall confusion without providing much clarity or immersion.

Despite being set in a fantasy world with an Italian city-state foundation, Navola doesn't deliver a compelling plot or strong character development. Davico is the typical empty vessel that many main characters of this kind of fantasy novel with a historical bent seem to favor. But I think Bacigalupi takes it too far and Davico really needed some proper fleshing out and purpose. Without an anchor of some kind of conflict — at least for the first half of this nearly 600 pager, the story seems aimless, neither driven by events nor by deep character arcs, as if uncertain of its own direction and intention.

That dragon's eye, prominently featured on the cover and in the book's opening, turns out to be a minor element in the narrative. It is briefly mentioned as a relic or a fossil, and some bits of lore are bandied about here and there, but it’s basically a glorified paperweight for the majority of the book. Such a missed opportunity to develop a more intriguing fantasy element, instead clearly setting up the rest of the books more than allowing this book to stand on its own. Overall, a challenging, cumbersome read that doesn’t quite achieve its potential.

Navola is a city-state built on the family di Regulai and the wit and strength of the banking prowess of the patriarch. Davico is a gentle kind boy and next in his line to this ruthless business built on the strength of reading people and not showing your own weaknesses. As he matures and comes of age, he discovers power through money, wit, subterfuge, love and the dragon eye in his father’s study. Will he pass the test to take on his father’s empire?

I really enjoyed this novel once the plot got moving, which unfortunately was halfway through the book. There was a lot of character building, world building and other foundational moments that were laid before the reader in the first half that at times bogged me down. However, once the halfway mark came around, plot points and that foundation blossomed into a captivating novel. The slightly fantastical element of the dragon eye is perfect and I cannot wait to see where the story goes from here. Definitely recommend, just stick through the first half and you will be rewarded. Superb writing. 4 stars.

Review based on a digital Advanced Reader’s Copy provided by Knopf and NetGalley. Thank you!

Big thanks to Netgalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for an ARC copy. All opinions are my own.
It has been longer than I care to admit where a historical fantasy novel caught and held my attention. Navola did that within the first few chapters and I was hooked from the start to the finish (especially from halfway on!!). This was a total breath of fresh air for me to read as it was incredibly unique and well-written. There is only a small portion of fantasy elements which I honestly didn’t mind in the slightest.
The full scope of Novola’s world is astoundingly large, but the plot always remains intimate and detailed for the reader. I never felt overwhelmed at the different developments occurring or the large cast of character. This story follows Davico from childhood all through adulthood. I liked how the book was split up between not only chapters but larger sections depicting Davico’s age. It helped create space for the reader and allow for good pacing while still devouring the plot. There was rich character development throughout the story and many noteworthy scenes and quotes that struck me. There are portions of a secondary language which was delightful and kept the reader immersed in the overall Italian vibe.
Speaking of the vibe, I had no idea that I needed a story to be set in Renaissance Italy?! This was incredibly unique and continuously eye-catching for me. I loved the language, the scenery and the representation of power. There were some lulls in chapters, but I felt the pace was perfect. Of course, the second half presents much more action, but I loved the incredible strong world building in the first half. I was happy to see that it did not slow in the second half but only took a backseat. As you might expect there were a lot of plot twists and surprising parts. I always felt on edge trying to discern what could happen next. There isn’t much spice, but with everything else going on it didn’t feel like a drawback. I mentioned earlier that the fantasy themes are very nondescript, and I do think it’s important to note. This story is more of the whims of men and their struggle to obtain power. It is very human in nature, which is extremely refreshing. It leaves off in a cliffhanger with an open door to future adventures, which I truly hope we will get to see more of.

The world building in the first half felt slow and daunting but I’m glad I stuck it out. The second half was great. Loved the historical fiction with a fantasy twist