A very intense read.
I found this book to be quite a lot to navigate as someone with no historical knowledge on the topic. The writing style used and the vast amount of characters that were explored made it quite challenging to keep up with. The lack of speech marks and sign posting of narrator changes made the book jarring to read at points, however, once used to the book's style, it was definitely a riveting read unlike many others.
The characters were clearly very well thought out and the way the history was explored through each character made me want to research more about the Ethiopian war. I learnt a lot through reading this book, without feeling like I was learning at all.
I thoroughly enjoyed being transported to this world for a brief time and I hope to read other books from this author again!
The Shadow King was the Newcastle University's Book Club society's book of the month; next month we are discussing The Stranger by Albus Camus. If you want to participate in the convo then sign up for the society on the NUSU page here!
