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3.92 AVERAGE
3.92 AVERAGE
adventurous
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
funny
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:
Complicated
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
verging on 3.5, but i liked it! maya is the absolute highlight and such an engaging character. gyre is interesting too, if less captivating than his sister. i would die for tanax because i love a Good Boy. some other aspects grated on me in a minor way, like the very YA-toned romance (in an otherwise adult fantasy) that came into play mid-book (though i do really like beq as a character, i hope we get more dimensions to her). the only real letdown for me was the end of the book, which dragged hard after a HUGE emotional payoff towards the middle-end, when i kept thinking to myself "why is the book still going?" also while i loved the pacing of 60% of the novel, i skipped over a lot of the action scenes in the last chunk because they got repetitive - at that point i just wanted to get to the next, clearly more important, thing. i'm looking forward to the next book!
Dnfed the book after the "bathing scene". Shame, because I like Star Wars and I hoped I will like the book, but I can't stand this stupid insta-lovey trope. Also because people in this world have anime-hair syndrome I couldn't stop myself from imagining Beq looking like Retasu from Tokyo Mew-Mew.
This was interesting, kind of steampunk, kind of Lovecraftian... I enjoyed it decently. 3.5, rounded up.
adventurous
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:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Thank you, NetGalley for providing me a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
(This was more of a 2.75-star read, but I rounded up to 3 stars)
Before you start reading this book, definitely check out the glossary in the back. Unless you'd like to decipher the language Wexler uses yourself. Because I jumped right into the story, I found myself very lost at the beginning of the book. It wasn't until I made the connection that the terms being used were similar to those in Star Wars. The Centarchs could be compared to Jedi, and Maya (and the other Agathia) could be seen as Padawans.
Ashes of the Sun did not feel very story-driven. Really, this felt like a series of events that just kind of happened. Nothing tied the story together. The characters were going on mission after mission, and for what? There didn't seem to be an end goal, for Maya at least. Gyre's goal was to overturn the entire Order. Hopefully, in the future books in the series, more sense is made of the events that happened.
The one thing that was tying me to this book was the characters. Because we are following two separate paths throughout the book, we meet many side characters. I enjoyed how the characters were written and I was interested to see how they would tie into the main story. I wish I was able to feel a bit more of a connection to these characters, though. We did see many side characters die throughout the story, and I didn't even think about their deaths after they happened. Perhaps it was because the characters also had little care for the deaths of their friends.
I also appreciated the LGBT representation within the story. It was great to see this in the main character and in other background characters. However, I do not believe I appreciated the relationship between Maya and Beq. I wish we got to see their relationship develop further, as Maya's attraction to Beq was simply on a physical level. Hopefully, that is something we will see further in the series.
Ashes of the Sun had great world-building and a fantastic magic system. If you're a reader who can appreciate lore, this may be the book for you. However, if you are looking for a fantasy with characters that tug on your heartstrings, you may want to skip out on this one.
(This was more of a 2.75-star read, but I rounded up to 3 stars)
Before you start reading this book, definitely check out the glossary in the back. Unless you'd like to decipher the language Wexler uses yourself. Because I jumped right into the story, I found myself very lost at the beginning of the book. It wasn't until I made the connection that the terms being used were similar to those in Star Wars. The Centarchs could be compared to Jedi, and Maya (and the other Agathia) could be seen as Padawans.
Ashes of the Sun did not feel very story-driven. Really, this felt like a series of events that just kind of happened. Nothing tied the story together. The characters were going on mission after mission, and for what? There didn't seem to be an end goal, for Maya at least. Gyre's goal was to overturn the entire Order. Hopefully, in the future books in the series, more sense is made of the events that happened.
The one thing that was tying me to this book was the characters. Because we are following two separate paths throughout the book, we meet many side characters. I enjoyed how the characters were written and I was interested to see how they would tie into the main story. I wish I was able to feel a bit more of a connection to these characters, though. We did see many side characters die throughout the story, and I didn't even think about their deaths after they happened. Perhaps it was because the characters also had little care for the deaths of their friends.
I also appreciated the LGBT representation within the story. It was great to see this in the main character and in other background characters. However, I do not believe I appreciated the relationship between Maya and Beq. I wish we got to see their relationship develop further, as Maya's attraction to Beq was simply on a physical level. Hopefully, that is something we will see further in the series.
Ashes of the Sun had great world-building and a fantastic magic system. If you're a reader who can appreciate lore, this may be the book for you. However, if you are looking for a fantasy with characters that tug on your heartstrings, you may want to skip out on this one.
adventurous
hopeful
tense
medium-paced