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4.26 AVERAGE
4.26 AVERAGE
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!
slow-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
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
funny
mysterious
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
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:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
An interesting and slow start for a book series. I need to see how the next few books before I can get a better idea.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I started this book being like "yes this has been on my TBR forever, but I have completely forgotten any of the description." Zorian starts off as the most insufferable sad boi that is somehow the worst parts of Holden Caufield mixed with the worst parts of the character Harry Potter. We are trapped in his head watching him judge literally everyone for no reason, and he never once says anything nice about anyone instead choosing to just avoid people. It was a huge delight to find out that he was going to be stuck in a 1 month time loop and continually be upset about dying.
The world building is really interesting and honestly kept me reading through the insufferable character development of magical Holden Caufield. There is one other time traveller who we see pretty early on who is a super bro, and I wish we spent more time with him. He seems like a good time. Throughout his loops he learns more about everyone individual lives and circumstances at the start of the loop, and it honestly humbles him in a way that is very much needed.
nobody103 definitely had a vision at the start of this series, and it shows in the careful development. He also put so much attention to detail in the world building that there are hundreds of years of history scattered into the pages. Unfortunately a lot of the time that history is just DUMPED out on you in like pages of exposition. It was interesting, but ultimately not super important to the progression of the story. It is a great indie-published book and took the time to develop characters and edit through a lot of stuff. This could have stood another book-long edit but I'm pretty sure this was published chapter by chapter which makes going back for big edits like that really difficult. Tore through it in less than a week, and am moving on to Arc 2. I cannot believe that I am so invested in literally a repeating 1 month of time forever.
The world building is really interesting and honestly kept me reading through the insufferable character development of magical Holden Caufield. There is one other time traveller who we see pretty early on who is a super bro, and I wish we spent more time with him. He seems like a good time. Throughout his loops he learns more about everyone individual lives and circumstances at the start of the loop, and it honestly humbles him in a way that is very much needed.
nobody103 definitely had a vision at the start of this series, and it shows in the careful development. He also put so much attention to detail in the world building that there are hundreds of years of history scattered into the pages. Unfortunately a lot of the time that history is just DUMPED out on you in like pages of exposition. It was interesting, but ultimately not super important to the progression of the story. It is a great indie-published book and took the time to develop characters and edit through a lot of stuff. This could have stood another book-long edit but I'm pretty sure this was published chapter by chapter which makes going back for big edits like that really difficult. Tore through it in less than a week, and am moving on to Arc 2. I cannot believe that I am so invested in literally a repeating 1 month of time forever.