4.09 AVERAGE

adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Re-reading this in preparation for the Isles of Emberdark because, of course, I couldn’t remember at all what happens other than that Aviar are a thing. Read it one sitting and really enjoyed it. Perhaps even more so knowing that I have a full book to move onto next!
adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: N/A
Loveable characters: N/A
Diverse cast of characters: N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus: N/A
merlucito's profile picture

merlucito's review

4.5
challenging 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: Yes

turn_j's review

3.5
adventurous mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

Amazing. A really great theme, mixed an interesting world. The way he builds a single symbolism and metaphor, slowly releasing more and more of it is really fascinating.

9/10
adventurous challenging medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: N/A
Diverse cast of characters: N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus: No
dark mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: N/A
Loveable characters: N/A
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: No
adventurous emotional mysterious reflective fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Loveable characters: Yes

A very tantalising adventure! That ends abruptly 😭

So I read this short story back in 2022, I did not enjoy it all that much. This was before I wrote reviews for every book I read. But I remember feeling bored because it was mostly a book of walking and talking.

Truth is, while this book isn't exactly mature, I myself had not matured as a person or reader to the point I could really appreciate this book for what it is. I lacked the patience to appreciate this.
As someone more relaxed and appreciative of the smaller and quieter things of life now, I very much enjoyed this story!

The world building was rich, the Aviar and the Patji culture was very interesting, and I really felt it for Sixth and the creatures in the world and empathized with the prospects of facing "modern civilization" and the Aviar being exploited for their abilities. It saddened me.
As someone from Ireland, it made me pretty sad as I could relate to it, the possible destruction of culture. In Ireland, our language is English, not Gaeilge, barely anyone speaks Gaeilge anymore and it's our own language, it and much of our culture was destroyed when we were oppressed by the Brits, which saddens me the very same way I feel about the native cultures in this book being destroyed by civilisation's evolution.

My own gripe is that the story ends so suddenly.
But, that's okay, as Mr Brando Sando wrote a full-length sequel to this short story with his latest Secret Project book called Isles of the Emberdark!
Off to read that book now! 🥳

Amazing experience as always from Graphic Audio, but again, the voice effect they apply for when someone is speaking in their head is too muffled and often hard to understand, an echo effect would have been the wiser choice.