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bluebooked's review against another edition
DNFing this right from the start. I wasn't given a single reason to care about the main character and I couldn't concentrate on anything plot-related because of it.
hannah2schmidt's review against another edition
2.0
I want to give it 1 star, but I can't be that critical since I finished it. It's a book. It's there. But there isn't much substance, all the characters are dry, and there were SO MANY plot holes. But it was a quick read and the writing wasn't awful.
faerietears's review against another edition
3.0
I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via the Goodreads First Reads program.
This is my first Amanda Sun book, and I really wanted to love it. There are so many wonderful things about it.
• Floating continents in the sky.
• Monsters
• Monster Hunters
• Dragons
• Royalty
And yet….. Something fell flat. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the book, I did enjoy the story, I just couldn’t get completely engrossed in it.
The story starts slowly, with Kali, the heir to Ashra—the floating world—alone in her favorite isolated place on her continent. We’re introduced to her BFF. We learn she is betrothed to a nobleman she feels nothing for. We learn that her people worship the Phoenix, who brought Ashra and the other islands to the sky. She sneaks off to the library and overhears talk from the elders that sounds bad. Blah blah blah.
Then she falls to the earth, and even that felt rushed. We know she’s going to survive, there couldn’t be a whole book told in first person if she didn’t survive. So then I thought, yeah! Here come the monsters! And we do see a couple monsters right away, but it was sort of anticlimactic. Then we meet Griffin, the monster hunter on earth, and… again, I waited for something big to happen, and though they did meet monsters, everything seemed so easy. (Yes, I know, Griffin has been hunting monsters all his life, but still! They’re killer monsters!) There was one particular monster scene (it’s in the water, I won’t say more) that was really awesome. Kali had a chance to really prove her worth there, and it was exciting and dangerous and I was eagerly flipping pages to see what happens. Then more stuff happens, then we get to the big finish. (And the finish was big, and sweeping, and epic, and amazing!)
I think what most prevent this book from being a WOW book for me was twofold.
1. This book is in present tense. In most cases, I despise present tense. It feels so awkward to read in the present tense, I’m sure some authors use it to give a sense of urgency to the reader, but for me it feels forced. It took me a really long time to look past that in this book.
And…
2. Most fantasy / dystopian / etc. YA books of today are not stand alone novels. In most cases they’re trilogies, giving time for a lot of world building and plot development. I really did like the world building in Heir to the Sky. In fact, I could easily picture what was happening, it was just enough detail for me. However, I think the plot could have been fleshed out more. There could have been more death defying challenges. The entire last section of the book, with the rebellion stuff, could have taken an entire book to really pull the reader into it and make us care about Ashra. Even when all was said and done, I think there’s room for another book with the aftermath, but maybe not.
This is still a good book, it’s just not a great book for me. I think younger teens would really enjoy it. Parents don’t need to worry about sex or language, there’s a kiss or two, but that’s it. And the violence is basically all monsters, and nothing graphic. So, I will hang onto this book for my daughter to read in a couple of years when she’s about 12 or 13.
MEMORABLE QUOTES
“I don’t have a chance to survive, but I refuse to die.”
“He looks the way I used to think of myself—invisible—before my fall and pathetic attempt at survival.”
“I am the wick and the wax. My life isn’t my own.”
“I was ready to let myself burn for you. But now I burn for myself.”
Read more reviews at www.carolineandrus.com/blog
This is my first Amanda Sun book, and I really wanted to love it. There are so many wonderful things about it.
• Floating continents in the sky.
• Monsters
• Monster Hunters
• Dragons
• Royalty
And yet….. Something fell flat. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the book, I did enjoy the story, I just couldn’t get completely engrossed in it.
The story starts slowly, with Kali, the heir to Ashra—the floating world—alone in her favorite isolated place on her continent. We’re introduced to her BFF. We learn she is betrothed to a nobleman she feels nothing for. We learn that her people worship the Phoenix, who brought Ashra and the other islands to the sky. She sneaks off to the library and overhears talk from the elders that sounds bad. Blah blah blah.
Then she falls to the earth, and even that felt rushed. We know she’s going to survive, there couldn’t be a whole book told in first person if she didn’t survive. So then I thought, yeah! Here come the monsters! And we do see a couple monsters right away, but it was sort of anticlimactic. Then we meet Griffin, the monster hunter on earth, and… again, I waited for something big to happen, and though they did meet monsters, everything seemed so easy. (Yes, I know, Griffin has been hunting monsters all his life, but still! They’re killer monsters!) There was one particular monster scene (it’s in the water, I won’t say more) that was really awesome. Kali had a chance to really prove her worth there, and it was exciting and dangerous and I was eagerly flipping pages to see what happens. Then more stuff happens, then we get to the big finish. (And the finish was big, and sweeping, and epic, and amazing!)
I think what most prevent this book from being a WOW book for me was twofold.
1. This book is in present tense. In most cases, I despise present tense. It feels so awkward to read in the present tense, I’m sure some authors use it to give a sense of urgency to the reader, but for me it feels forced. It took me a really long time to look past that in this book.
And…
2. Most fantasy / dystopian / etc. YA books of today are not stand alone novels. In most cases they’re trilogies, giving time for a lot of world building and plot development. I really did like the world building in Heir to the Sky. In fact, I could easily picture what was happening, it was just enough detail for me. However, I think the plot could have been fleshed out more. There could have been more death defying challenges. The entire last section of the book, with the rebellion stuff, could have taken an entire book to really pull the reader into it and make us care about Ashra. Even when all was said and done, I think there’s room for another book with the aftermath, but maybe not.
This is still a good book, it’s just not a great book for me. I think younger teens would really enjoy it. Parents don’t need to worry about sex or language, there’s a kiss or two, but that’s it. And the violence is basically all monsters, and nothing graphic. So, I will hang onto this book for my daughter to read in a couple of years when she’s about 12 or 13.
MEMORABLE QUOTES
“I don’t have a chance to survive, but I refuse to die.”
“He looks the way I used to think of myself—invisible—before my fall and pathetic attempt at survival.”
“I am the wick and the wax. My life isn’t my own.”
“I was ready to let myself burn for you. But now I burn for myself.”
Read more reviews at www.carolineandrus.com/blog
tiareleine's review against another edition
2.0
Despite a lot of negative reviews, I thought there was a pretty good chance I might like Heir to the Sky. I mean, with Amanda Sun's previous books (the Paper Gods trilogy) I found myself giving the third book 4 stars! It seemed to me like Amanda Sun was only getting better.
Unfortunately, Heir to the Sky let me down.
The book follows a girl named Kallima, or Kali, the daughter of the Monarch of a continent floating above earth. When she falls over the edge, she must find a way to get back up and also deal with some new, and unpleasant, information she has learned about the society her father rules.
Despite some really interesting world-building that happened in the first chapter, I found my understanding of this world to be lacking. Here are some questions I have:
If there are two moons, how/why is the planet down below still Earth?
How are the people down below living in groups of 3-5? How do they have enough food and supplies? How do they have time to take multiple week excursions to help people they've never met before? How are they not struggling to survive? How do they sustain themselves over multiple generations? How do they have multiple generations? It kind of seems like nobody is really having kids down there anymore.
If this is earth, where did all those monsters come from?
Why was so much time spent developing the floating world if most of the action took place down below?
I'm especially disappointed by this because the setting was the strongest part of the Paper Gods series. It was so strong, in fact, that I kept reading despite giving the first book two stars. If this were the first in a series (which it's not) I don't think I'd keep reading.
And then there are the characters. Kali was... somehow extremely naive and also amazingly good at picking up new skills. That doesn't really add up in my head. She didn't pick up on a few very obvious things, and yet she could kill a monster (while suffering from broken ribs) within a few days...? And it wasn't like she was the kind of person who was intuitive about physical stuff at the expense of critical thinking skills, she was also supposed to be some kind of political mastermind.
Basically, she was too perfect. And so was Griffin.
As soon as he met Kali, all Griffin wanted to do was help her. She refused his help, telling him she didn't want to take him away from his other responsibilities, but he insisted. Despite living in a hunter-gatherer society with only two other people, Griffin didn't seem to have any responsibilities. At all. He came and went as he pleases, and his two companions didn't seem any worse off for it. If I were one of them I think I would have asked him what the point of him was.
I don't really have anything to say about the supporting cast, except one thing about her father. I appreciate that her father wasn't perfect. He may have been the only character that was really flawed in that way that well written characters are. He meant well, but his actions were ultimately damaging.
I'm sad to say that I didn't enjoy this book. I wanted to like it. I thought I would like it. I would say that if I hadn't read 300+ YA books before this one, I might have liked it. But it fell into too many bad tropes. I almost hate to recommend another author's book on a negative review, because that feels like rubbing salt in a wound, but since my reviews are written for readers (and absolutely not for authors-- this is not a critique!) I'm going to go ahead and do it. If you're looking for a floating continent book, I recommend Lauren DeStefano's Internment Chronicles trilogy.
Unfortunately, Heir to the Sky let me down.
The book follows a girl named Kallima, or Kali, the daughter of the Monarch of a continent floating above earth. When she falls over the edge, she must find a way to get back up and also deal with some new, and unpleasant, information she has learned about the society her father rules.
Despite some really interesting world-building that happened in the first chapter, I found my understanding of this world to be lacking. Here are some questions I have:
If there are two moons, how/why is the planet down below still Earth?
How are the people down below living in groups of 3-5? How do they have enough food and supplies? How do they have time to take multiple week excursions to help people they've never met before? How are they not struggling to survive? How do they sustain themselves over multiple generations? How do they have multiple generations? It kind of seems like nobody is really having kids down there anymore.
If this is earth, where did all those monsters come from?
Why was so much time spent developing the floating world if most of the action took place down below?
I'm especially disappointed by this because the setting was the strongest part of the Paper Gods series. It was so strong, in fact, that I kept reading despite giving the first book two stars. If this were the first in a series (which it's not) I don't think I'd keep reading.
And then there are the characters. Kali was... somehow extremely naive and also amazingly good at picking up new skills. That doesn't really add up in my head. She didn't pick up on a few very obvious things, and yet she could kill a monster (while suffering from broken ribs) within a few days...? And it wasn't like she was the kind of person who was intuitive about physical stuff at the expense of critical thinking skills, she was also supposed to be some kind of political mastermind.
Basically, she was too perfect. And so was Griffin.
As soon as he met Kali, all Griffin wanted to do was help her. She refused his help, telling him she didn't want to take him away from his other responsibilities, but he insisted. Despite living in a hunter-gatherer society with only two other people, Griffin didn't seem to have any responsibilities. At all. He came and went as he pleases, and his two companions didn't seem any worse off for it. If I were one of them I think I would have asked him what the point of him was.
I don't really have anything to say about the supporting cast, except one thing about her father. I appreciate that her father wasn't perfect. He may have been the only character that was really flawed in that way that well written characters are. He meant well, but his actions were ultimately damaging.
I'm sad to say that I didn't enjoy this book. I wanted to like it. I thought I would like it. I would say that if I hadn't read 300+ YA books before this one, I might have liked it. But it fell into too many bad tropes. I almost hate to recommend another author's book on a negative review, because that feels like rubbing salt in a wound, but since my reviews are written for readers (and absolutely not for authors-- this is not a critique!) I'm going to go ahead and do it. If you're looking for a floating continent book, I recommend Lauren DeStefano's Internment Chronicles trilogy.
_pearl_'s review against another edition
3.5
What an aggressively abrupt ending with zero resolution
oliviagrace982's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
This was pretty good but I felt like there could have been something more to it. I cant describe it. I really liked Griffin just because I felt like he was the nicest character. Also I liked that Kali didn't stay helpless, she and adapted and persevered. Again, there was just something missing and I have no idea what, maybe it was that I felt like Kali didn't get that great of an ending. Like she had to keep leading the people Ashra when the whole book it was clear that's not what she wanted. I don't know
jesunflower's review against another edition
3.0
Review in Italian: https://lalibreriadij.wordpress.com/2016/06/13/heir-to-the-sky/
I was expecting something completely different, or at least more engaging. The story itself is promising but it was slow paced and I wanted more.
It's definitely not a bad book but but my thoughts about it are bittersweet.
I was expecting something completely different, or at least more engaging. The story itself is promising but it was slow paced and I wanted more.
It's definitely not a bad book but but my thoughts about it are bittersweet.
dragontalon's review against another edition
4.0
I finally got to sit and read this. I actually really enjoyed this easy read. It was light, quick and a single book! 💜 The love interest was cute, the action was good and the villain... was lacking but it was only a single novel. It did well for a single book.