“What is faith, if not the most beautiful way to become vulnerable?”
I have finished reading the book, and my first thought was not about Sybill, nor Rory, or the ending.
I have asked myself:
What is faith?
Is it the power to believe in a God? In a destiny? In a promise? Or is it the bravery to believe in yourself?
Și dacă adevărata credință începe atunci când încetezi să mai cauți răspunsurile în exterior?
🌫️ I have read…an almost 500 pages worth of prologue
I cannot say I was bored. I can say worst than that.
I have waited for the story to start.
Chapter after chapter, one mystery after another, revelation upon revelation, I got the impression that Rachel Gillig says:
“Just have a little patience.”
And I had. A lot. Maybe too much.
❤️ The only saviours of the book
Sybil and Rory. That is all. The chemistry between them feels real. The banter is charming. Their moment together are giving life to the book. Unfortunately, those are few and far between.
If this book got my 3 stars, it was almost entirely because of them.
🪨 The world starts topeling over
The fantasy is a genre that can invent anything. Dragons. Gods. Monsters. Magic.
But I thin there is one rule, that no author should break:
The rule of his own world.
If you are telling me that the Abess is a colossal force, almost impossible to defeat, and then you punch her over and over again and throw her on the altar with one hand…I am lost. Not because it is a fantasy, but because there are no consequences. There is no endgame. There is just an author who needs to reach the last page.
🌑 The Book of No Hope
And then here comes the ending… that made me close the book and stare at the cover for a good few minutes. Not because it was shocking, but because it was….void. I was left under the impression that humanity needs to believe in something outside itself to survive, that people need something greater to go forward. And I don`t believe that. I think this was the exact moment that I parted ways with the book.
🌱 Faith grows from inside
If faith means to bear your soul and lay it down ion the altar of your faith…. why is it that the exact same thing that is supposed to make you stronger, transforms you into your most vulnerable version of you.
Maybe vulnerability is the price of faith. But then another question comes to my mind.
What is faith?
To put all your hopes in a God? A power? Or in yourself? Maybe true faith does not mean to kneel. Maybe it means turning to yourself, picking up all the scattered pieces of your soul, accepting the light and the dark within yourself, and growing like a plant from its own seed. Because when you manage all that, you are not opening up your soul to a higher power; you are opening it to yourself. And maybe this is the hardest form of faith there is.
🌿 Verdict
The Knight and the Moth is, without a doubt, better than One Dark Window. Rachel Gillig‘s writing matures, becomes more elegant, and is brave enough to bring hard themes like faith, manipulation, sacrifice, and identity to the table. And that is exactly why I am so disappointed. Because I feel this story could have said the same thing with greater clarity, less running around in circles, and with much more feeling. Sometimes the biggest difference between a good book and an extraordinary one is not the idea.
It is the way you chose to say it.
⭐⭐⭐☆☆
📖 The question I was left with:
If people need faith to survive… why are we so often choosing to search for it outside ourselves? What if the power we search for in a God, a hero, or a destiny was always residing inside us? Maybe the real journey is not to the altar, maybe it is the long, difficult road back … towards ourselves.
