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shilo1364's review
5.0
A slow start, but I was hooked by the time Training started.
My initial impression was that it was hard to get into (slow going at first, with lots of characters and a *lot* of detail of the landscape). Once I became involved in the story and found myself caring about the characters - about the time Training started - I found it an engaging and rewarding read.
This book has the perfect blend of adventure and character development. There are some rather adult themes in the book (abuse, loyalty to an abuser out of fear, death and pain) - but they enhance the story and are skillfully written.
All of the characters were wonderfully developed. In many fantasy novels with such an extensive list of characters, some will be well developed and others will be one-dimensional. Not so in this case. Even those characters with relatively small roles to play have very distinct personalities, and most experience emotional growth during the story.
Corto and Renard and Sev were fleshed out very slowly, and their personalities given time to change and evolve over the course of the novel. Hobo was fantastic as comic relief and a loveable character. Munk seemed one-sided at first and then developed a wonderful dry sense of humor. He ended up really fantastic.
It's not just the characters that are so well developed - the entire world, the religions, the language, the customs and history - it's all there. Everything has been so very well thought out that it just feels... real.
There is a lot of darkness in this book. There is cruelty, and abuse, and pain, and injuring (and killing)! .... So much darkness. Which I honestly did not expect. And it gave it so much more depth, and made it so much more believable and real. And then there is so much kindness and witty, funny things to counter it. Which is good, because otherwise I wouldn't have come away feeling particularly good about it I think.
My initial impression was that it was hard to get into (slow going at first, with lots of characters and a *lot* of detail of the landscape). Once I became involved in the story and found myself caring about the characters - about the time Training started - I found it an engaging and rewarding read.
This book has the perfect blend of adventure and character development. There are some rather adult themes in the book (abuse, loyalty to an abuser out of fear, death and pain) - but they enhance the story and are skillfully written.
All of the characters were wonderfully developed. In many fantasy novels with such an extensive list of characters, some will be well developed and others will be one-dimensional. Not so in this case. Even those characters with relatively small roles to play have very distinct personalities, and most experience emotional growth during the story.
Corto and Renard and Sev were fleshed out very slowly, and their personalities given time to change and evolve over the course of the novel. Hobo was fantastic as comic relief and a loveable character. Munk seemed one-sided at first and then developed a wonderful dry sense of humor. He ended up really fantastic.
It's not just the characters that are so well developed - the entire world, the religions, the language, the customs and history - it's all there. Everything has been so very well thought out that it just feels... real.
There is a lot of darkness in this book. There is cruelty, and abuse, and pain, and injuring (and killing)! .... So much darkness. Which I honestly did not expect. And it gave it so much more depth, and made it so much more believable and real. And then there is so much kindness and witty, funny things to counter it. Which is good, because otherwise I wouldn't have come away feeling particularly good about it I think.
joanneasbury42's review
4.0
I really liked this book! Very interesting characters, that after a while, you forget are animals. A great read if you like Redwall, Erin Hunter's Clan books, or any other series that have animals as the main characters.
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