Hey guys,
So this is the final instalment of my February read reviews and I am sad to say that I in no way left the best till last. I started and completed this on the 29th of Feb, so if this wasn’t a leap year this would be the first review of March, alas it’s a leap year and so it goes with February reads.
The cover is beautiful but it is one of the only things I liked about this book.
Although I read this book in one sitting, however it was purely because I knew that if I put it down, or even closed it for a moment, I would not have the mental strength to pick it back up again.
Now I would usually put the blurb here… its usually a few lines or so on the main storyline or the main character; but this may as well have been a prologue for the amount of information provided! Almost three hundred words fit carefully onto the sleeve overlap and frankly it put me off. I am not going fill this post with that blurb.
Now I am going to put this out there… I did not buy this book; it was randomly delivered to my house, the confusion still gets to me.
So onto what I actually didn’t like about this book. Firstly, storyline; the storyline is a basic one, there is a rebellion and wanting to over throw the crown. It’s the basic set-up of most fantasy storyline, however when it is the only storyline it is extremely disappointing. There was a love interest, a minimal and rather annoying one, but it added nothing to a storyline.
Okay, there are concepts within the world building that I liked; being three or more layers to society, with only the King and tutors being able to read and write higher order language, with scholars being able to read and write lower order language, with everyone else being illiterate. This could have been a wonderful storyline but it was almost ignored once the idea was planted, only popping up now and then.
In terms of character development, there isn’t any. The main character and important side characters all remain the same at the beginning as they are at the end. The only character that received any attention in terms of development is the original tutor, you learn more about her actions in a way that I wish you had with all the other characters.
The ending… the ending was so bad that I was tempted to give up ten pages from the end. It was a cop-out, you almost predicted the use of the secret item thanks to a whole chapter dedicated to it. In terms of the final battle, it was clear that it was rushed; character behaviour was extremely unrealistic, one moment they were on the floor trembling with pain being over come, but in the next sentence they are running across the courtyard and climbing towers as if there is no pain at all.
Overall, I would not recommend this to fantasy readers, or in fact any readers.
Helen x
mythical musings 