Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.09 AVERAGE
4.09 AVERAGE
I really enjoyed this book. It’s a lot less formulaic or procedural than the first book. The brisk pacing and a story driven narrative captures your attention better. It’s also a lot of set-up for the final conclusion without feeling like its a filler and it does not leave you unsatisfied.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
tense
fast-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
challenging
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
1.5 stars. Very poorly edited, too many superfluous details and grating sentences. however, 1.5 because I am still going to read the 3rd final Book because I want to know how this ends. one more thing that could have improved this book would be more risks. SPOILERS FOLLOW (more like lack of): nobody major dies. and they spend 95% of the book safely wandering around. when they are in danger, situations are reduced quickly. characters are too safe and the constant security is uninteresting.
the war finally starting to happen and the introduction to all of the wonderful new characters made this so entertaining. this is an incredibly well written middle grade fantasy series. i’m very excited to finish and see what happens in the next book
Page one: I’m hooked. This series has had a chokehold on me. The whimsy of the story and the characters mixed with the incredibly high stakes and levels of danger is intoxicating. At the very start of this book, I loved the giants and the lurker that were introduced. The gnomes being giants?! Such a cool, creative twist! 10/10 for the beginning of this story.
Then there was the middle… that was rough. The middle was just endless traveling and hiking and practicing swordsmanship and learning Edomic. There was very, very little action, and it just got to be a bit dull and repetitive.
As for the ending, it was slightly better. There were zombie people that provided a more exciting brief conflict and broke up the monotonous journey. However, with so much of the book just being hiking from point A to point B… I’m not very entertained.
Now, the characters. Let’s start with Jason. I. Love. Jason. His humor and wit is so amazing. Even during the most dull moments of the book, his sense of humor kept me engaged and entertained. However, Jason isn’t necessarily the smartest character. I mean… a shadow creature was following him ominously and he decided that that would be a great time for a nap. Hm… odd choice, but okay.
With Rachel, I really love her path that she’s on to becoming a wizard. I am quite curious about where this will take her as we head into the finale, though. She has a major choice to make: stay in Lorien and become the Oracle, or go home and reunite with her family. I’m really intrigued by this dilemma she faces because I feel like I really don’t know what she’ll choose.
Then there’s the other characters! I really liked that we got more Galloran in this story. He’s a fascinating character. His blindness doesn’t hinder him, and he’s still the best swordsman around. He’s not a boring monarch like he easily could be, so I really love seeing new sides of him come out. There were also other side characters… potentially too MANY side characters. It became quite difficult to keep track of who was who. There was: Tark, the member of the Giddy Five with undying loyalty to Jason; Farfalee, the amar leader, and Drake and Jasher, other amar; Aram (close to amar), the half-giant; Nedwin, the sneaky man loyal to Galloran; Io and Nia, drinlings that age rapidly; Corinne, Galloran’s daughter; Ferrin, the displacer who is untrustworthy; and several others that aren’t even mentioned here. Clearly, Jason and Rachel are the main characters, with Galloran being third in the lead, but I wish there slightly fewer characters. I do think that Mull does pretty well at giving the smaller characters some background and development, but with such a large cast of characters, it’s really difficult to get a good intimate knowledge of them, so oftentimes I had to flip back through the book to remember who was who.
One of the other side characters that I didn’t really mention was Chandra. Mainly because… she died. Her death seemed like it was supposed to be super impactful and sad. Rachel kept lamenting over it and agonizing over her “dead friend.” However, she had been barely seen in the story at all and had been introduced like two chapters prior, so I couldn’t really be invested in her loss because she was so minimal that her absence was unnoticed.
In the end, this book really felt like a classic middle book. It wasn’t as much fun as the first book, and it wasn’t as exciting as the third will end up being. It really just set the stage for book three without much of an independent plot. I get the necessity, but it was also a bit boring because of this fact.
To read more of my thoughts on this book, check out https://yalitreader.wordpress.com/2022/04/13/seeds-of-rebellion-by-brandon-mull/
Then there was the middle… that was rough. The middle was just endless traveling and hiking and practicing swordsmanship and learning Edomic. There was very, very little action, and it just got to be a bit dull and repetitive.
As for the ending, it was slightly better. There were zombie people that provided a more exciting brief conflict and broke up the monotonous journey. However, with so much of the book just being hiking from point A to point B… I’m not very entertained.
Now, the characters. Let’s start with Jason. I. Love. Jason. His humor and wit is so amazing. Even during the most dull moments of the book, his sense of humor kept me engaged and entertained. However, Jason isn’t necessarily the smartest character. I mean… a shadow creature was following him ominously and he decided that that would be a great time for a nap. Hm… odd choice, but okay.
With Rachel, I really love her path that she’s on to becoming a wizard. I am quite curious about where this will take her as we head into the finale, though. She has a major choice to make: stay in Lorien and become the Oracle, or go home and reunite with her family. I’m really intrigued by this dilemma she faces because I feel like I really don’t know what she’ll choose.
Then there’s the other characters! I really liked that we got more Galloran in this story. He’s a fascinating character. His blindness doesn’t hinder him, and he’s still the best swordsman around. He’s not a boring monarch like he easily could be, so I really love seeing new sides of him come out. There were also other side characters… potentially too MANY side characters. It became quite difficult to keep track of who was who. There was: Tark, the member of the Giddy Five with undying loyalty to Jason; Farfalee, the amar leader, and Drake and Jasher, other amar; Aram (close to amar), the half-giant; Nedwin, the sneaky man loyal to Galloran; Io and Nia, drinlings that age rapidly; Corinne, Galloran’s daughter; Ferrin, the displacer who is untrustworthy; and several others that aren’t even mentioned here. Clearly, Jason and Rachel are the main characters, with Galloran being third in the lead, but I wish there slightly fewer characters. I do think that Mull does pretty well at giving the smaller characters some background and development, but with such a large cast of characters, it’s really difficult to get a good intimate knowledge of them, so oftentimes I had to flip back through the book to remember who was who.
One of the other side characters that I didn’t really mention was Chandra. Mainly because… she died. Her death seemed like it was supposed to be super impactful and sad. Rachel kept lamenting over it and agonizing over her “dead friend.” However, she had been barely seen in the story at all and had been introduced like two chapters prior, so I couldn’t really be invested in her loss because she was so minimal that her absence was unnoticed.
In the end, this book really felt like a classic middle book. It wasn’t as much fun as the first book, and it wasn’t as exciting as the third will end up being. It really just set the stage for book three without much of an independent plot. I get the necessity, but it was also a bit boring because of this fact.
To read more of my thoughts on this book, check out https://yalitreader.wordpress.com/2022/04/13/seeds-of-rebellion-by-brandon-mull/
I honestly don't know what to rate this. On the one hand, it was engaging (especially the first half), funny, and extremely creative. On the other, I was definitely more critical. Looking overall, I think I'd give it three and a half stars. That last quarter of the book left me pretty disturbed, raising an eyebrow about some of the deeper things. But then it was good ol' Jason in Lyrian again, which was grand.
The zombies and the oracle brought this book down to a four for me. The Torivors were kind of cool and creepy. Loved that last sword fight, that was kind of awesome. This book was easily becoming more interesting than the last. But the journey to get to the Oracle was lame and the way she had to poison herself to see into the future was lame. I'm also annoyed with what she saw. I know writers have to make the chances of winning seem slim, but seriously, I thought the book could have done without The Oracle altogether. The Oracle was too much of a detour for me. And now it looks like conditions have to be perfect in order to win. Seems a bit out there to me. Okay, now that I've ranted on that. I certainly had the perfect recipe for nightmares between the Torivors and the Walking Dead. I am so not a zombie fan. There are reasons I don't seek out material with zombies. I could handle the Torivors because they were the perfect combination of interesting and scary. There are many other elements in the story I love. Rachel is learning Edomic. She undid a wizard monster. The group found a load of Oriantum. Jasher is back. The giant is kind of cool. Though I have to say that the giant town totally creeped me out. Okay, I seriously loved so much of this book. Just take away the zombies and the oracle, and add a little more of the brilliance that created the Torivors and the little people that turn into giants. My two cents.