Review: The Tainted Cup

Hello, beautiful bats! Welcome to my first review of the year! And what a start - The Tainted Cup is a gorgeous novel. I wanted to give some explanation for my rating system, so please see here for more information on my needlessly complicated system.

I have never been so sure so early in the year that a book would remain in my top ten, but I have a really good feeling about The Tainted Cup. I have read nothing by Robert Jackson Bennett and I usually don't read books by men who aren't long dead - let alone men who go by three boy names in a row. I was pleasantly surprised by almost everything in this novel and have already preordered the sequel (a third unusual behavior for me). Summaries are my achilles heel, so I'm going to send you over to Penguin if you want some context.

My highest hope for this book was Adventure Time meets Monk or Murder She Wrote, and this hope was not only met but was exceeded with a touch of Macbeth? The West Wing? I don't watch enough political thrillers to really bring this home, unfortunately. If you are drawn to this book for the murder mystery element, as I was, you may fear being abandoned in a haze of world building. Reading this book feels similar to reading a murder mystery set in the world of cat showing - you learn about the showing world to understand means and motives, not vice versa. This alone was enough to earn two bats - I deeply, deeply appreciate when needles are threaded.

One bat is earned for the sheer realism of this fantasy novel. I will go along with anything if given a plausible enough explanation, and The Tainted Cup manages to make the concept of modified humans about double or triple average size, utilized by the empire for strength, and horrifically called "cracklers," very reasonable in the grand scheme of things. The other modifications and their classifications, and their realistic integration into a sociopolitical system, are fun the way the Hogwarts houses are fun. There was only one modification I found a little... silly goofy, but I have a feeling it may serve as a plot device (or at least a metaphor) in the sequel, so I will defer judgement. You'll know it when you read it, dear reader.

Another bat is won for... Din. Our sweet, sweet Dinios Kol, who is, by mandate of the plot, entirely factually reliable, but still manages to deceive the reader (just a fun amount), all by accident and by omission. He is a wonderful foil to Ana, who I found to be both fun and a little evil. Ana does suffer from Sherlock Syndrome (read: she believes she is smart enough to break all social norms and to be indiscriminately harsh), but Din does hold his own.

The loss of one bat comes from a particularly unfortunate case of what I call "doughnut hole in the doughnut's hole" effect. Knives Out landed the twist within a twist so perfectly, and since then, it's even more painful to read too many twists - which is exactly what happens here. Rather than the twists shocking me in a satisfying way, they knocked me out of the narrative and led me to question if there was something I missed. This problem is in no way unique to The Tainted Glass. It's a common pitfall in the genre, and the novel is strong enough to withstand the bumpiness of the landing. Still, a bat dies every time an author mistakes a graceful landing for a boring outcome.

Overall, I give The Tainted Cup 4 out of 5 bats (a measure of quality - which in my world, is spookiness & gothic whimsy) and 2 bows (a measure tenderness & intricacy - the frill and excess that makes a story particularly appealing to readers like me). If not for my doughnut hole qualms, this would have been an easy 5 bats. So far, it is certainly my favorite read of the year.