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3.95 AVERAGE
3.95 AVERAGE
This was...fine. And usually fine is, well, fine, but between the cover, the premise, and the amazing prologue, I was really hoping for more from this one. This has all the elements I usually want in a fantasy novel: animal companions, battle school, and siblings who are desperate to protect one another. Unfortunately, despite a promising start, Staveley didn't manage to inject any originality into these tropes/archetypes. This was basic fantasy fare, offered up with predictable twists and writing that could have used a firmer edit.
I know this was a debut and I don't wish to be unduly harsh. I did think that there was great potential here, and I'm happy to follow the series along to see if I can discover what has made it such a joy for so many others.
I know this was a debut and I don't wish to be unduly harsh. I did think that there was great potential here, and I'm happy to follow the series along to see if I can discover what has made it such a joy for so many others.
adventurous
slow-paced
There were definitely things I liked about this book, but it was difficult for me to get past the fact that the narrative was continually reminding me that women are less important than men in this fantasy world. The book shows that both through the ways that women and men are represented in the world and through the language and insults that get used. Even in a narrative sense, the two male point of view characters get vastly more screen time than the one female point of view character. The female point of view character is also portrayed as less powerful and given less in the story.
The portrayal of gender roles was unpleasant enough that I'm not planning to read more in this series, but there were things I liked. The world feels large and detailed, for example. The book's take on "elves" feels new and interesting, although I really struggled with understanding their motivations. Hopefully future books are able to flesh that out more -- their motivations seem important, but why would a completely emotionless race continue a losing war? I also liked the book's take on magic, and how the nature of magic drives those who use it to secrecy and deception.
Other things worth calling out -- this is the first book in a series. It does have an ending, but it also leaves lots of dangling plot threads. Also because it's introducing the main characters, they spend a whole lot of time failing badly throughout the book. Presumably this sets up their arcs for some displays of competence in future books. Finally, a central feature of one of the book's narrative threads is a religion which was jarring because it felt like a misunderstanding of Buddhism. For example, it features monks who spend lots of time meditating in pursuit of "emptiness". It's an unfortunate choice of words, because "emptiness" is also the most common English translation of the Sanskrit word "Shunyata", a core concept in Mahayana Buddhism. But the "emptiness" in the world of The Emperor's Blades is not at all like "emptiness" in Buddhism. I suggest that readers try to ignore any similarities between the Shin and Buddhists -- apparent parallels are very misleading.
The portrayal of gender roles was unpleasant enough that I'm not planning to read more in this series, but there were things I liked. The world feels large and detailed, for example. The book's take on "elves" feels new and interesting, although I really struggled with understanding their motivations. Hopefully future books are able to flesh that out more -- their motivations seem important, but why would a completely emotionless race continue a losing war? I also liked the book's take on magic, and how the nature of magic drives those who use it to secrecy and deception.
Other things worth calling out -- this is the first book in a series. It does have an ending, but it also leaves lots of dangling plot threads. Also because it's introducing the main characters, they spend a whole lot of time failing badly throughout the book. Presumably this sets up their arcs for some displays of competence in future books. Finally, a central feature of one of the book's narrative threads is a religion which was jarring because it felt like a misunderstanding of Buddhism. For example, it features monks who spend lots of time meditating in pursuit of "emptiness". It's an unfortunate choice of words, because "emptiness" is also the most common English translation of the Sanskrit word "Shunyata", a core concept in Mahayana Buddhism. But the "emptiness" in the world of The Emperor's Blades is not at all like "emptiness" in Buddhism. I suggest that readers try to ignore any similarities between the Shin and Buddhists -- apparent parallels are very misleading.
Absolutely fantastic!!
*goes to get next in series*.... OH FOR THE LOVE OF &@%#* I HAVE TO WAIT!!!
*cries*
*goes to get next in series*.... OH FOR THE LOVE OF &@%#* I HAVE TO WAIT!!!
*cries*
A difficult listen. I'd imagine an even harder read. It's get a two star, because although it's bad, I've unfortunately read worse. But this? This is clinging onto that second star.
"The fullness of her breasts"
Every author has a particular description they like to repeat... the above appears to be Staveleys. Every female character will get given that description within the book. It doesn't matter when or how, it'll pop up. The only exception appears to be the main character(s) mother. Maybe we need to wait for Book 2 for that...
There's three main characters in this book, two brothers and a sister. You wouldn't think so though, because Adare, the daughter of the Emperor seems to drop in and out randomly for I think a total of 7, maybe 8 chapters? Short chapters at that. When she does make an appearance, she's... well, she's a little crap. Sure, her breasts are very full, but she doesn't seem to have anything about her. Constantly outmanoeuvred, she's always on the backfoot, which is unusual when she's been described by one of the Emperor's generals as exceptionally gifted. There's nothing satisfying about her journey - she reads like a short story, inserted between the other two characters just to give that sense of 'oh no, what happens next' when one of them finishes a chapter on a cliff hanger. Next chapter? Oh, it's good ol' Adare. Hurray.
I'm not entirely convinced Staveley intended her to be involved in this book, because there's at least two points where the brothers forget about her. They seem to have a bond, created by running around as kids waving wooden sticks, but Adare isn't in any of their flashbacks. She's just not part of their lives it seems, and the brothers seem to harbour no feelings towards her in any obvious manner.
The unremarkable nature of Adare by the way, will also be constant feature of the Emperor's sons - Kaden and Valyn. 'Average' isn't the best quality to pass down in the gene pool. They only seem to gain any sense of 'skill' at the end, and it's such a sudden, surprising experience that you wonder what would be the point of them without this influx of ability. To those who like a computer game reference, they 'level up' at just the right moment and select the specific skill they need to complete the challenge.
Instead, the 'villain' they each are tasked to face, always appears to have the upper hand, always one step ahead. There's never a moment where you think the 'goodies' have caught up. They're always... just... lacking...
I'd say even when a villain meets their downfall, it feels so flat and so much has been sacrificed, that it didn't feel rewarding. There was no moment of sweet revenge. No point where you felt satisfied that a wrong had been righted.
Kaden grew into a more interesting character - initially he was quite dull, and Staveley takes so long explaining exactly what the monastery is about, and using that to fill out the worlds history, then when Valyn's scenes pop up, it can feel a little jarring.
Valyn, an elite behind the enemy lines soldier of the Empire, is pretty bad at the thing he's trained to do. A supposed leader in the making, whose undergone 8 years of incredibly hard training, is never as good as anyone else. He doesn't lead very well, he struggles to recognise others abilities in a way he can make use of, and well... He goes through training exercise after training exercise, constantly failing. Not only does he fail, he gets berated by everyone about how rubbish he is. The only thing he seems to know, is how to recount literature by his favourite tactician. That's how he navigates situations. It's like Staveley substituted Sun Tzu for his own version (Hendrick) and that's enough for Valyn to struggle on.
You could say Valyn was book smart in this manner, but that just seems odd, because no one else in the Ketral (I assume I'm spelling that right, because audiobooks don't spell out the unusual words!) seems to refer to said material.
Speaking of which, the Ketral are lacking in any description of a organisation. A sneaky, stealthy, attack by night group, yet I could never work out how 'big' they were. They have the control of a bunch of islands in the middle of nowhere, but their operational size is always murky. I know they are comprised of 'Wings', which is made up of 5 soldiers. A leader, a flyer, a sniper, a demolition expert and a leech. How many Wings? Who knows! There's reference to how they lost 5 Wings in Action here, 10 Wings in Action there, which if they are apparently only able to get 20-25 recruits through a year, means they are either far bigger than is described, or they've almost been wiped out half a dozen times. Just think - 10 wings is 50 recruits. That's two entire years of new blood needed to replace them, before they even get any experience!
Also why is it, every time a cadet group graduates, they make at least one Wing made solely of new cadets? Who gives a bunch of greens lead command and sends them out to do these impossible missions?! Who knows!
Like many fantasy books, the world is fleshed out slowly and with an abundance of strange names and meanings, however my constant returning thought was 'where is that place? Why's it important again?' I'd imagine the book has a sketched map, which the author expects you to refer to, every time some random place is mentioned.
Brian Staveley clearly has a picture of this grand ol' setting, but he doesn't do a grand job of detailing the specifics of a place to have them latch onto your mind. I struggled to remember any of the outer regions or what set them apart. Oh, except they are all full of barbarians, wandering tribes, the uneducated and haters of the Empire.
I got the impression, that he was trying to make you feel negatively towards the Empire, but there wasn't enough obvious reason to, bar they control everything, and they have slaves. I mean, that stuff is bad, but then he would mention how the population got fed, watered, paid and had religious doctrinarian to keep them happy. And the population -was- happy with that. If anything, there's specific points where people meddling with the various Churchs actively upsets the population! They seem quite content to turn up, pray to the God of Sunshine, then go about their lives. This isn't specifically an Empire that needs to be fixed, and the 'good guys' are attached to the Throne. So I guess all is fine? It's just those terrible Gauls, I mean Mongolians, I mean native Americans, I mean nomadic barbarian groups that need a right seeing to.
There's a distinct 'Roman' feel to the Empire. Heck, there's even a Pantheon of Gods, however the Churches seem to be as militaristic as the Empire. Church of Death Assassins? Sure. Church of Warrior Monks? Fine. Do any of them get managed or controlled by the Empire? Eeeh... sort of. I guess. Maybe? They have to be told to not over step their reach a few times, but they seem better placed to fend off the unruly barbarians than your average Empire militant.
Staveley also has this annoying habit of holding back information about a specific subject or topic, thus leaving the reader in the dark about a mystery or problem, until it's revealed right at the end. You can't, as the reader, work out a plausible line of query. It's an unsolvable mystery. You simply have to keep reading until the truth is given to you.
The truth is magic by the way. Obviously it's magic. Magic is the answer to everything. If you guessed Magic, well done. I bet you couldn't guess how the Magic works, could you? I've read the book and I'm still not even sure how the Magic works. There absolutely is Magic, and there's a really interesting tid bit of 'Oooh' for a particular magic revelation, that I was excited by. But it's buried away after a single chapter, even though it feels integral to the importance of the story later (Book 2 onwards kind of later). You're then constantly distracted by other people's magic.
Oh, other people's magic by the way, seems either really crap, or really strong, depending on the moment.
Many of the side characters have singular personalities, doing, saying or being a specific way. This sort of gives the main character's depth, but it also highlights how 2D everyone is. It's probably what shows up Valyn so much. Every flat side character is better at him at their specific thing, and they only ever do their specific thing in front of him. It's because of this he gets exposed more than Kaden (whose complement of side characters all avoid doing the thing he does. Instead they do their 'good thing' to support him).
Some of the side characters also feel... well... unbeatable. It feels like there's an attempt at mystery to them ('how are they so strong?!') but frankly their apparent skill and power is so staggering at points, I was left wondering if they could be the main character from now on, because they were way more interesting.
A Priest of the Dead who is actually an aged, but exceptional Assassin, able to go toe-to-toe with the best in the world using only knives and little else?! Ketral who?! Skullsworn seem pretty cool is all I'm saying. No idea how or why they're allowed to kick around in the Empire though. If I was going to have anyone guard the Emperor though, it would be those guys.
In regards to other elements of the book, there's also some weird ass homophobic moment near the end of the book which is SUPER confusing. It's just... there... It appears and disappears again, and left me utterly baffled. I think it's because it made no sense why it would be a problem, yet it's treated as one.
So that, combined with explanations to confirm child prostitution (and then attempt to convince the reader it's arguably 'fine') and a separate scene about someone getting excited they get to bang a 15 year old (who also has full breasts...), leaves some icky moments, that some readers aren't going to be comfortable with. I'm not even joking when I say, there's several minutes of description about how glorious this 15 year old girl looks. It's not even just one guy he thinks that - this girl is so beautiful, that every man who sees her, feels an 'urge'. It's described as an 'urge' to protect later on, but I don't believe you Mr. Staveley. You're trying to do a G. R. R. Martin on us, I know it...
Said 15 year old is also described as meek and unsure of herself... yet miraculously goes through more sudden character growth than Valyn in the course of two, maybe three chapters. Now she's ballsy, and head strong and capable of high level acting under huge stress while also having exceptional stamina. What is going on...
Side note: The girl is a concubine. We're clearly in the Roman Empire at this point. It's fine to have imaginary empires built on the concept of real ones, I just found the conversation that followed about a man chatting to his mother, when he was kid about concubines and their 'uses' a bit unusual. It feels like it's the author's attempt to make the reader understand the character's justification for wanting to sleep with the girl.
Further to this, it's explained that concubines are there to pleasure a man, when his wife can't, but wives aren't allowed them. Why? Don't know! I'd imagine it ties back to the sentiment about homosexuality? The Empire hates gays I guess. Perhaps the reason is revealed in Book 2.
In some ways, I wish this book was used as an example of the 'Male Gaze' when I was at University, because it's darn well clearer than some of the text books I was forced to buy, then read. At least Peter Brett waited until his fourth book before he started getting weird. According to Good Reads, there's five books in this series. FIVE. My brain can't fathom if there's actually five books written in this way. And it got nominated for best fantasy in 2014?!
Luckily I've got a bunch more books I need to read/listen to first, before I contemplate going back. I'm tempted to read the second because I can't begin to think it'll get worse. But as I've mentioned, I've read Peter Brett's series and it can. So maybe not...
"The fullness of her breasts"
Every author has a particular description they like to repeat... the above appears to be Staveleys. Every female character will get given that description within the book. It doesn't matter when or how, it'll pop up. The only exception appears to be the main character(s) mother. Maybe we need to wait for Book 2 for that...
There's three main characters in this book, two brothers and a sister. You wouldn't think so though, because Adare, the daughter of the Emperor seems to drop in and out randomly for I think a total of 7, maybe 8 chapters? Short chapters at that. When she does make an appearance, she's... well, she's a little crap. Sure, her breasts are very full, but she doesn't seem to have anything about her. Constantly outmanoeuvred, she's always on the backfoot, which is unusual when she's been described by one of the Emperor's generals as exceptionally gifted. There's nothing satisfying about her journey - she reads like a short story, inserted between the other two characters just to give that sense of 'oh no, what happens next' when one of them finishes a chapter on a cliff hanger. Next chapter? Oh, it's good ol' Adare. Hurray.
I'm not entirely convinced Staveley intended her to be involved in this book, because there's at least two points where the brothers forget about her. They seem to have a bond, created by running around as kids waving wooden sticks, but Adare isn't in any of their flashbacks. She's just not part of their lives it seems, and the brothers seem to harbour no feelings towards her in any obvious manner.
The unremarkable nature of Adare by the way, will also be constant feature of the Emperor's sons - Kaden and Valyn. 'Average' isn't the best quality to pass down in the gene pool. They only seem to gain any sense of 'skill' at the end, and it's such a sudden, surprising experience that you wonder what would be the point of them without this influx of ability. To those who like a computer game reference, they 'level up' at just the right moment and select the specific skill they need to complete the challenge.
Instead, the 'villain' they each are tasked to face, always appears to have the upper hand, always one step ahead. There's never a moment where you think the 'goodies' have caught up. They're always... just... lacking...
I'd say even when a villain meets their downfall, it feels so flat and so much has been sacrificed, that it didn't feel rewarding. There was no moment of sweet revenge. No point where you felt satisfied that a wrong had been righted.
Kaden grew into a more interesting character - initially he was quite dull, and Staveley takes so long explaining exactly what the monastery is about, and using that to fill out the worlds history, then when Valyn's scenes pop up, it can feel a little jarring.
Valyn, an elite behind the enemy lines soldier of the Empire, is pretty bad at the thing he's trained to do. A supposed leader in the making, whose undergone 8 years of incredibly hard training, is never as good as anyone else. He doesn't lead very well, he struggles to recognise others abilities in a way he can make use of, and well... He goes through training exercise after training exercise, constantly failing. Not only does he fail, he gets berated by everyone about how rubbish he is. The only thing he seems to know, is how to recount literature by his favourite tactician. That's how he navigates situations. It's like Staveley substituted Sun Tzu for his own version (Hendrick) and that's enough for Valyn to struggle on.
You could say Valyn was book smart in this manner, but that just seems odd, because no one else in the Ketral (I assume I'm spelling that right, because audiobooks don't spell out the unusual words!) seems to refer to said material.
Speaking of which, the Ketral are lacking in any description of a organisation. A sneaky, stealthy, attack by night group, yet I could never work out how 'big' they were. They have the control of a bunch of islands in the middle of nowhere, but their operational size is always murky. I know they are comprised of 'Wings', which is made up of 5 soldiers. A leader, a flyer, a sniper, a demolition expert and a leech. How many Wings? Who knows! There's reference to how they lost 5 Wings in Action here, 10 Wings in Action there, which if they are apparently only able to get 20-25 recruits through a year, means they are either far bigger than is described, or they've almost been wiped out half a dozen times. Just think - 10 wings is 50 recruits. That's two entire years of new blood needed to replace them, before they even get any experience!
Also why is it, every time a cadet group graduates, they make at least one Wing made solely of new cadets? Who gives a bunch of greens lead command and sends them out to do these impossible missions?! Who knows!
Like many fantasy books, the world is fleshed out slowly and with an abundance of strange names and meanings, however my constant returning thought was 'where is that place? Why's it important again?' I'd imagine the book has a sketched map, which the author expects you to refer to, every time some random place is mentioned.
Brian Staveley clearly has a picture of this grand ol' setting, but he doesn't do a grand job of detailing the specifics of a place to have them latch onto your mind. I struggled to remember any of the outer regions or what set them apart. Oh, except they are all full of barbarians, wandering tribes, the uneducated and haters of the Empire.
I got the impression, that he was trying to make you feel negatively towards the Empire, but there wasn't enough obvious reason to, bar they control everything, and they have slaves. I mean, that stuff is bad, but then he would mention how the population got fed, watered, paid and had religious doctrinarian to keep them happy. And the population -was- happy with that. If anything, there's specific points where people meddling with the various Churchs actively upsets the population! They seem quite content to turn up, pray to the God of Sunshine, then go about their lives. This isn't specifically an Empire that needs to be fixed, and the 'good guys' are attached to the Throne. So I guess all is fine? It's just those terrible Gauls, I mean Mongolians, I mean native Americans, I mean
There's a distinct 'Roman' feel to the Empire. Heck, there's even a Pantheon of Gods, however the Churches seem to be as militaristic as the Empire. Church of Death Assassins? Sure. Church of Warrior Monks? Fine. Do any of them get managed or controlled by the Empire? Eeeh... sort of. I guess. Maybe? They have to be told to not over step their reach a few times, but they seem better placed to fend off the unruly barbarians than your average Empire militant.
Staveley also has this annoying habit of holding back information about a specific subject or topic, thus leaving the reader in the dark about a mystery or problem, until it's revealed right at the end. You can't, as the reader, work out a plausible line of query. It's an unsolvable mystery. You simply have to keep reading until the truth is given to you.
The truth is magic by the way. Obviously it's magic. Magic is the answer to everything. If you guessed Magic, well done. I bet you couldn't guess how the Magic works, could you? I've read the book and I'm still not even sure how the Magic works. There absolutely is Magic, and there's a really interesting tid bit of 'Oooh' for a particular magic revelation, that I was excited by. But it's buried away after a single chapter, even though it feels integral to the importance of the story later (Book 2 onwards kind of later). You're then constantly distracted by other people's magic.
Oh, other people's magic by the way, seems either really crap, or really strong, depending on the moment.
Many of the side characters have singular personalities, doing, saying or being a specific way. This sort of gives the main character's depth, but it also highlights how 2D everyone is. It's probably what shows up Valyn so much. Every flat side character is better at him at their specific thing, and they only ever do their specific thing in front of him. It's because of this he gets exposed more than Kaden (whose complement of side characters all avoid doing the thing he does. Instead they do their 'good thing' to support him).
Some of the side characters also feel... well... unbeatable. It feels like there's an attempt at mystery to them ('how are they so strong?!') but frankly their apparent skill and power is so staggering at points, I was left wondering if they could be the main character from now on, because they were way more interesting.
A Priest of the Dead who is actually an aged, but exceptional Assassin, able to go toe-to-toe with the best in the world using only knives and little else?! Ketral who?! Skullsworn seem pretty cool is all I'm saying. No idea how or why they're allowed to kick around in the Empire though. If I was going to have anyone guard the Emperor though, it would be those guys.
In regards to other elements of the book, there's also some weird ass homophobic moment near the end of the book which is SUPER confusing. It's just... there... It appears and disappears again, and left me utterly baffled. I think it's because it made no sense why it would be a problem, yet it's treated as one.
So that, combined with explanations to confirm child prostitution (and then attempt to convince the reader it's arguably 'fine') and a separate scene about someone getting excited they get to bang a 15 year old (who also has full breasts...), leaves some icky moments, that some readers aren't going to be comfortable with. I'm not even joking when I say, there's several minutes of description about how glorious this 15 year old girl looks. It's not even just one guy he thinks that - this girl is so beautiful, that every man who sees her, feels an 'urge'. It's described as an 'urge' to protect later on, but I don't believe you Mr. Staveley. You're trying to do a G. R. R. Martin on us, I know it...
Said 15 year old is also described as meek and unsure of herself... yet miraculously goes through more sudden character growth than Valyn in the course of two, maybe three chapters. Now she's ballsy, and head strong and capable of high level acting under huge stress while also having exceptional stamina. What is going on...
Side note: The girl is a concubine. We're clearly in the Roman Empire at this point. It's fine to have imaginary empires built on the concept of real ones, I just found the conversation that followed about a man chatting to his mother, when he was kid about concubines and their 'uses' a bit unusual. It feels like it's the author's attempt to make the reader understand the character's justification for wanting to sleep with the girl.
Further to this, it's explained that concubines are there to pleasure a man, when his wife can't, but wives aren't allowed them. Why? Don't know! I'd imagine it ties back to the sentiment about homosexuality? The Empire hates gays I guess. Perhaps the reason is revealed in Book 2.
In some ways, I wish this book was used as an example of the 'Male Gaze' when I was at University, because it's darn well clearer than some of the text books I was forced to buy, then read. At least Peter Brett waited until his fourth book before he started getting weird. According to Good Reads, there's five books in this series. FIVE. My brain can't fathom if there's actually five books written in this way. And it got nominated for best fantasy in 2014?!
Luckily I've got a bunch more books I need to read/listen to first, before I contemplate going back. I'm tempted to read the second because I can't begin to think it'll get worse. But as I've mentioned, I've read Peter Brett's series and it can. So maybe not...
I really enjoyed this book. I had the audio version, and I found myself staying up late or working out so that I could listen to it.
The cons: there are some clunky 1st book elements, a some over-repeated phrases (the curve of her breast, stuff of nightmares), and it can get a little purple at times, prose-wise. There are not one but two "women in refrigerators, one of whom is the motivation for not one but two characters. So that storytelling trope is in full effect. Also, the one female POV character gets ridiculously short shrift. She has only three or four chapters out of fifty.
Pros: The story was good and engaging, it was paced well, it was split nicely between the two brothers (sorry Adair), there were several strong badass female characters, and even the sexy sexy lady character was more complex than just having boobs and being pretty. I particularly liked that the Shin seemed to be modeled after Zen Buddhists, and some of the magic in the book is based on Zen beliefs. So that was cool. Plus, it was a lot of fun. Dark, but not ridiculously so, fun and popcorny but not frivolous. I definitely recommend it.
The cons: there are some clunky 1st book elements, a some over-repeated phrases (the curve of her breast, stuff of nightmares), and it can get a little purple at times, prose-wise. There are not one but two "women in refrigerators, one of whom is the motivation for not one but two characters. So that storytelling trope is in full effect. Also, the one female POV character gets ridiculously short shrift. She has only three or four chapters out of fifty.
Pros: The story was good and engaging, it was paced well, it was split nicely between the two brothers (sorry Adair), there were several strong badass female characters, and even the sexy sexy lady character was more complex than just having boobs and being pretty. I particularly liked that the Shin seemed to be modeled after Zen Buddhists, and some of the magic in the book is based on Zen beliefs. So that was cool. Plus, it was a lot of fun. Dark, but not ridiculously so, fun and popcorny but not frivolous. I definitely recommend it.
A very well woven plot with excellent character progression. The world is well realized without crushing the reader with too much detail. An excellent start to what looks to be a very engaging series.
Pulpy and entertaining - it probably won't be held up as the pinnacle of the genre, but I couldn't stop reading it.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Okay, followed this book up after reading the prequel. And once again had to sit on it for a bit to decide what I think. On the one hand, there were parts that I couldn’t wait to turn the page and had to keep going. On the other hand, for a <500 page book it felt like 1000 pages. It took me a long time to read and to get through and I kept wanting to be finished. I enjoyed the characters, but struggled with getting to the point of what was going on. It got exciting once I finally connected the prequel to the first book - but that was very far into the book. I feel invested enough that I will likely finish this series; but not so invested that I’m not immediately running to read the next book. Overall it was interesting fantasy with a unique magical world.
I was sad about this ranking, it started with a very interesting intro but the progress couldn’t hold it for me. I know it says Valyn has to go through a test but it felt so out of the main plot, as well as Kaden’s training, I was starting to get annoyed by the teachings lol.
I wanted to finish it because I liked the characters (Valyn and Kaden mostly) but it was hard to keep up.
I wanted to finish it because I liked the characters (Valyn and Kaden mostly) but it was hard to keep up.