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4.26 AVERAGE
4.26 AVERAGE
Never before have I changed my opinion on a book so drastically while reading it as with this one. It started off as a 5 star book and ended up a "I don't want to rate it so I don't mess up the overall GR rating for a book written by a Croatian author"book.
I basically hate-read the last 10% of the book. And the ending! WOW man, the ending. I thought it couldn't get worse, but somehow it did.
EVERY SINGLE CHAPTER starting with 15% is an infodump. EVERY SINGLE ONE.
Man this book, I wish someone who knew how to write wrote it.
I basically hate-read the last 10% of the book. And the ending! WOW man, the ending. I thought it couldn't get worse, but somehow it did.
EVERY SINGLE CHAPTER starting with 15% is an infodump. EVERY SINGLE ONE.
Man this book, I wish someone who knew how to write wrote it.
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
adventurous
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
From a "this is how much I enjoyed reading it" perspective I'd say this is more like a 4.5, but from a "this is how I feel it stacks up to other books" it's more like a 3.75
I gave this book 4 stars but in reality I think it's more deserving of 3.5 or so.
This book is about a teenage mage stuck in a time loop encompassing the beginning of his school year. Once again (because that seems to be all my friends read) I decided to read a book with a decidedly YA bent even though I don't particularly care for YA.
Obviously I enjoyed this book to a degree, but it has a pretty rough start. Zorian is a pretty unlikeable asshole and his activities, up until he gets caught in the time loop, are fairly boring. Once the time loop gets started I found it to be engaging, but I still wanted to slap Zorian across the mouth. I understand that personal growth is a part of the story, but he doesn't have to start off that unlikeable.
The world building is standard fantasy fare, but the writing comes across as amateurish (as I assume this is the author's first novel). The narrator is one of the better ones, even though some of his voices are a tad too (intentionally) irritating.
Worth a read if you have a particular interest in fantasy, YA, or time-based shenanigans
This book is about a teenage mage stuck in a time loop encompassing the beginning of his school year. Once again (because that seems to be all my friends read) I decided to read a book with a decidedly YA bent even though I don't particularly care for YA.
Obviously I enjoyed this book to a degree, but it has a pretty rough start. Zorian is a pretty unlikeable asshole and his activities, up until he gets caught in the time loop, are fairly boring. Once the time loop gets started I found it to be engaging, but I still wanted to slap Zorian across the mouth. I understand that personal growth is a part of the story, but he doesn't have to start off that unlikeable.
The world building is standard fantasy fare, but the writing comes across as amateurish (as I assume this is the author's first novel). The narrator is one of the better ones, even though some of his voices are a tad too (intentionally) irritating.
Worth a read if you have a particular interest in fantasy, YA, or time-based shenanigans
adventurous
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
funny
mysterious
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
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
dark
mysterious
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
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I wasn’t immediately hooked on this book. In fact I was rather annoyed with its protagonist in the beginning. Said person is the teenage boy and mage student Zorian Kazinski and at first his grumpy and anti-social mannerisms come off as very unsympathetic. But I must say that I felt like the book already does a pretty good job in character development for Zorian and there are also very good reasons as to why he is how he is and everything just starts making a lot of sense the further you get into the book.
Plotwise it also starts a little uninteresting with a rather general mage school setting and I found the first about 5 chapters to be rather boring. The plot quickly picks up though when the actual time looping begins which is still fairly early in the book.
The concept of the time loop is definitely well explored within fiction and there especially are a fair amount of my favorite TV shows that have dabbled with this concept and I think for me it is way more often more hit than miss. This also holds true for this book as we very repeatedly loop over the same month with slight alterations while we slowly gather more and more information.
During his time loops Zorian meets a lot of distinct and well developed side characters and I feel like almost each of those make the whole thing instantly compelling. My favorite of those is a species of non-humanoids which Zorian interacts quite a lot with and are just a source for a lot of laughs as well as contributing majorly towards the main Mystery of the story.
Where the book truly shines though is the audiobook narration. Jack Voraces is killing it. One could say that he overperforms but I don’t think so. He certainly gives each character a very unique voice, does a lot with different accents and just conveys a lot of emotion with his tone and way of speaking. Like for example if a character is meant to be annoying, they really, really get annoying!
I like the narration so much that I will immediately jump into book 2. And if you’re looking for a good audiobook and the mage school trope and time loops are interesting to you, you should absolutely check out this series!