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4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
Enjoyed this book and looking forward to the next in the series!
Good book, but written at a teen/very young adult level.
Curious to see where all this goes. I was confused by the two timelines (Han and Raisa's stories were concurrent but the timing between life events for each of them seemed different, it was weird) and the geography also confused me... Fellsmarch to Marisa Pines to Arden shouldn't be as equidistant as it shows on the map in the book per the map in my head. If it took Amon a month to get from Oden's Ford to Fellsmarch, how can Han travel from Fellsmarch to Marisa Pines in a few hours of hiking? Confused! Not that that should really impinge upon the actual reading, but it did a little, for me.
I certainly wasn't trying to guess where everything was going (except to figure out who Raisa's main love interest would be. Jury's still out on that.) and so I was pleasantly surprised by a lot of the plot twists in this book.
Also I read the "joke" top review on this book just now and yes, this does start off a little bland. I didn't realize it was a YA novel and so had slightly different expectations for it - in my own experience, adult fantasy novels take a while to get going because of the world building. If they DON'T take a while, I (usually) get confused and irritated (unless it's Tamora Pierce, or there's a great prologue that explains everything). So naturally to each her own and it's not like that review is giving this book a bad rap on here, but I wanted to comment!
Okay and now some more since I've decided to not read the entire series in one go (so sue me, it's this new thing I'm trying), summary!
High Wizard has to put out the scary fire. Raisa is princess heir but chafing at her life although courtship sounds like fun and she's got a crush on Micah (why?!). Her mother seems a little dim.
Han is poor. Has silver cuffs on his wrists. Keeps the amulet, hidden. Mom and little sister.
Raisa's friend Amon comes home from soldier school. She realizes she's hopelessly naive and decides she wants to learn things for herself but who can she possibly actually trust and it's too dangerous for her to go out alone... but! She'll get her father (a trader) to exchange all the jewels she's getting as courting gifts and donate the money to the poor. When she's down there Han oddly kidnaps her (he was at the school healing after he got beat up by the Queen's Guard aka police because they thought he must have killed a bunch of gang kids, but he didn't, the gang kids were actually killed by the High Wizard's scary shadow soldiers as he was looking for the amulet that Micah gave up) and they hang out for a night that serves minimal purpose, and then Raisa gets indignant about the cruelty of the Guards and their jails and goes into one and starts a mini-revolt which lasts for a whole day+ and eventually Amon ends it. Then the High Wizard has plotted to date-rape his son and Raisa as part of his plan to have Micah marry Raisa and take over the world (ostensibly with him as regent). Han runs off, fakes his death, hangs out with the clan, comes back eventually, mom & sis are sick, he decides to sell the amulet, fence has told Mr Bayar, Bayar shows up for the amulet, Han escapes but Bayar has his home (/stable room) burned and mom and sis are dead. Han heads back up to the clan, they tell him he's got a lot of wizard power in him hidden by his cuffs and he should consider taking them off and going to wizarding school to then fight on the side of goodness sooner or later. He agrees and heads off with his buddy Fire Dancer who's also a wizard since his mom was raped once by one.
Raisa meanwhile turns 16 and after her party the High Wizard convinces her mom that Raisa and Micah should get married RIGHT NOW and Raisa is like hell no, so she's trixy and escapes with help from her nurse who is secretly a bamf and of course Amon. Amon, his buddies, and Raisa go off to soldier school (right next to wizarding school) with Raisa in disguise as a normal person.
Oh and Amon has been blood-bound to Raisa without her knowledge as a "protector of the line of Hanalea" which gives him some premonition (which was real strong and then basically stopped working, wtf?)/sixth sense to help Raisa as long as she's doing what's best for the "line"/presumably HER COUNTRY?
Raisa and Han are cousins many times removed.
Country to the south of them is at war with a bunch of sons all fighting for the crown.
Country to the west-ish is pretending there's nothing wrong.
Pirates to the east.
Digging Bird and Han have sex but she gets all freaked out about his magic and goes off to join the Demonai warriors (which she was going to do anyway but they don't part on great terms). The Demonai are very anti-wizard.
Raisa has a magic ring that will sort of protect her from wizarding influence.
I think that's basically it!
I certainly wasn't trying to guess where everything was going (except to figure out who Raisa's main love interest would be. Jury's still out on that.) and so I was pleasantly surprised by a lot of the plot twists in this book.
Spoiler
Raisa's kidnapping by Han (he seemed smarter than that), his death (see above re: timeline: when Amon told Raisa at Micah's party that Han was dead, I believed it, since I thought weeks had passed since Han had left those bloody clothes on the riverbank. I got it a paragraph later when Amon explained what had happened, though), Fire Dancer being exiled (also, so much rape culture by the wizards), Han's identity (obviously it was something, but I didn't expect it to be that!), and probably some other things.Also I read the "joke" top review on this book just now and yes, this does start off a little bland. I didn't realize it was a YA novel and so had slightly different expectations for it - in my own experience, adult fantasy novels take a while to get going because of the world building. If they DON'T take a while, I (usually) get confused and irritated (unless it's Tamora Pierce, or there's a great prologue that explains everything). So naturally to each her own and it's not like that review is giving this book a bad rap on here, but I wanted to comment!
Okay and now some more since I've decided to not read the entire series in one go (so sue me, it's this new thing I'm trying), summary!
Spoiler
Han and Fire Dancer are out in the woods. Han is poor. What, a forest fire in spring?! That's not natural. Micah Bayar and two cronies come down on horses. Dancer stops them! They've stolen an amulet from Micah's father (the High Wizard) to start this fire to run game down the mountain for the queen & princess, to impress the princess who Micah has the hots for. But they're kind of nervous. They aren't old enough to know how to do magic yet. Han makes them leave the amulet on the ground and the boy wizards continue on their way. Han and Dancer go back to Marisa Pines camp, Han heads home, he's still poor, does odd jobs, old drunk moonshine maker in the woods tells him the story of Hanalea (wonderful virtuous warrior queen, married (on purpose? against her will?) to one known as the Demon King who broke the world. (Kind of like humans might). Wizards were terrible, the Naeming allied normal humans/the queen (descendants of Hanalea, which is also a mountain peak), with the clans & their green magic with wizards and their scarier magic.High Wizard has to put out the scary fire. Raisa is princess heir but chafing at her life although courtship sounds like fun and she's got a crush on Micah (why?!). Her mother seems a little dim.
Han is poor. Has silver cuffs on his wrists. Keeps the amulet, hidden. Mom and little sister.
Raisa's friend Amon comes home from soldier school. She realizes she's hopelessly naive and decides she wants to learn things for herself but who can she possibly actually trust and it's too dangerous for her to go out alone... but! She'll get her father (a trader) to exchange all the jewels she's getting as courting gifts and donate the money to the poor. When she's down there Han oddly kidnaps her (he was at the school healing after he got beat up by the Queen's Guard aka police because they thought he must have killed a bunch of gang kids, but he didn't, the gang kids were actually killed by the High Wizard's scary shadow soldiers as he was looking for the amulet that Micah gave up) and they hang out for a night that serves minimal purpose, and then Raisa gets indignant about the cruelty of the Guards and their jails and goes into one and starts a mini-revolt which lasts for a whole day+ and eventually Amon ends it. Then the High Wizard has plotted to date-rape his son and Raisa as part of his plan to have Micah marry Raisa and take over the world (ostensibly with him as regent). Han runs off, fakes his death, hangs out with the clan, comes back eventually, mom & sis are sick, he decides to sell the amulet, fence has told Mr Bayar, Bayar shows up for the amulet, Han escapes but Bayar has his home (/stable room) burned and mom and sis are dead. Han heads back up to the clan, they tell him he's got a lot of wizard power in him hidden by his cuffs and he should consider taking them off and going to wizarding school to then fight on the side of goodness sooner or later. He agrees and heads off with his buddy Fire Dancer who's also a wizard since his mom was raped once by one.
Raisa meanwhile turns 16 and after her party the High Wizard convinces her mom that Raisa and Micah should get married RIGHT NOW and Raisa is like hell no, so she's trixy and escapes with help from her nurse who is secretly a bamf and of course Amon. Amon, his buddies, and Raisa go off to soldier school (right next to wizarding school) with Raisa in disguise as a normal person.
Oh and Amon has been blood-bound to Raisa without her knowledge as a "protector of the line of Hanalea" which gives him some premonition (which was real strong and then basically stopped working, wtf?)/sixth sense to help Raisa as long as she's doing what's best for the "line"/presumably HER COUNTRY?
Raisa and Han are cousins many times removed.
Country to the south of them is at war with a bunch of sons all fighting for the crown.
Country to the west-ish is pretending there's nothing wrong.
Pirates to the east.
Digging Bird and Han have sex but she gets all freaked out about his magic and goes off to join the Demonai warriors (which she was going to do anyway but they don't part on great terms). The Demonai are very anti-wizard.
Raisa has a magic ring that will sort of protect her from wizarding influence.
I think that's basically it!
Took me a while to get into this. For the first, well, large amount of this book, I wasn't particularly interested in the characters and the main canon ship annoyed me (though actually it was more the *idea* of it, since the two characters only meet once in the entire book). But because I promised a friend I'd read it, I forced my way through it, and now I can actually see the appeal--enough that it seems likely I may even read the next book. I want to see what happens with all the political stuff, and also there'll be wizard training! I like training better than almost anything.
Rereading the series for the first time since the final book came out years ago. Living for fun writing and a great nostalgia kick
The books get better as the series continues! This first book gave more background around the main characters to prep for the next books
adventurous
emotional
funny
mysterious
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:
No
adventurous
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
My roommates spent the whole of last semester raving about this series, so I had hoped I would enjoy this one as well, since we tend to have similar tastes that all stem from a childhood of Harry Potter and Percy Jackson.
I am grateful for my roommate for sending me the this book for Christmas. I'm not sure if I would have picked it up if I hadn't received a copy, and I definitely would have been missing out if I didn't.
The story follows Han, a former streetlord who does what he can to protect his family, even when that means leaving the gang life and not bringing in as much to support his family. It also follows Princess Raisa, who is kind of a run of the mill princess who hates her life and wishes things were different, blah blah blah. However, from the beginning, her story has a very Aladdin-like feel to it, and I love the role that characters play in Aladdin and retellings. I see Raisa as very similar to Jasmine in the way she looks at marriage and her role in the kingdom as a whole, even as power corrupts.
The novel alternates with both of these characters' stories and also encompasses a lot of clever world-building, but that does not sacrifice the character development, nor the other way around. I like how this is a soft-magic world, not completely powered by it, but not completely removed either. I really appreciate the writing because it manages to mesh everything together in a perfect combination.
The story is also filled with so many major plot points it's hard to keep track, and even though there is a lot of foreshadowing, it's not at all predictable, especially when it comes to Raisa's story. It takes a lot of skill to be able to do that, and it's not something many writers can do.
This goes right up there with a few of my other favorite series, all fantasy and science fiction, that build their worlds and their characters so cleverly that it's hard not to fall in love from the first pages. I'm going to try to keep myself away from the second book until later in the month, but I know it will be tricky.
I am grateful for my roommate for sending me the this book for Christmas. I'm not sure if I would have picked it up if I hadn't received a copy, and I definitely would have been missing out if I didn't.
The story follows Han, a former streetlord who does what he can to protect his family, even when that means leaving the gang life and not bringing in as much to support his family. It also follows Princess Raisa, who is kind of a run of the mill princess who hates her life and wishes things were different, blah blah blah. However, from the beginning, her story has a very Aladdin-like feel to it, and I love the role that characters play in Aladdin and retellings. I see Raisa as very similar to Jasmine in the way she looks at marriage and her role in the kingdom as a whole, even as power corrupts.
The novel alternates with both of these characters' stories and also encompasses a lot of clever world-building, but that does not sacrifice the character development, nor the other way around. I like how this is a soft-magic world, not completely powered by it, but not completely removed either. I really appreciate the writing because it manages to mesh everything together in a perfect combination.
The story is also filled with so many major plot points it's hard to keep track, and even though there is a lot of foreshadowing, it's not at all predictable, especially when it comes to Raisa's story. It takes a lot of skill to be able to do that, and it's not something many writers can do.
This goes right up there with a few of my other favorite series, all fantasy and science fiction, that build their worlds and their characters so cleverly that it's hard not to fall in love from the first pages. I'm going to try to keep myself away from the second book until later in the month, but I know it will be tricky.