Sunday, February 25, 2024

The Canopy Keepers by Veronica G. Henry

The Canopy Keepers (The Scorched Earth #1)

So, I quite liked the premise of The Canopy Keepers. A hidden world existing alongside ours always gets me. However, I don’t really feel like it lived up to its promise. I felt The Canopy Keepers was just alright.

The pacing is really weird. The plot is also unfocused, swapping between Syrah’s goals without really reconciling them between swaps, just kind of letting the goals hang, unfinished. Getting repeats of Romelo’s goals, as well, a few times too many. We get it, you’re angry at the humans.

The “romance” between Syrah and Ochai is barely that. Seems silly, really. Also throws a wrench in Syrah’s convictions, I think. I mean, I’m glad she got to see some bad about Rhiza because of Ochai and not just Romelo and his little band of miscreants.

There was definitely a strong pro-environment message here. That’s hammered home a lot. Not overly annoyed about it or anything, but it’s there, existing.

The Canopy Keepers just tries to do a bit too much with not a good amount of time to do it in. I feel like it could have benefited from a good dose of world-building in addition to what there is. Probably would have made things a lot more clear. As it is, it rushes toward the ending and then spends forever actually ending. Not a big fan.

Favorite Line

"But colonizers, in their finite wisdom, assumed that they knew better. Once they stole the land and tried to destroy the people who called the place home, they stopped the burns. It took another hundred years and a lot of scorched forest for someone to rethink that brainless choice."

No comments:

Post a Comment