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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
2nd time reading this book, and I still adore it.
I love the magic system, and I love Vhalla and Aldrick (despite both making absolutely stupid decisions sometimes). Admittedly, the pacing of this book is not the greatest. We start off strong, before falling into a bit of a lull. Despite that, this book kept me engaged, and was an enjoyable read.
I see a lot of reviews complaining about editing. If that is turning you off, please note that the author has fixed a lot of the issues with grammar, dialogue tags etc., in the edition currently available.
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
What I wanted out of this book based on reviews and the summary was more Avatar the Last AirBender. What I got was not anything close, other than vague descriptions are Ground, Fire, Water, and lastly the special Air. Are their more specialties?
I liked this enough to want to read the sequel. 3.5, rounded up.
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
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:
Complicated
I hadn't heard about this book until I searched for good books on kindle unlimited, since it's currently free for 2 months. It's a pretty quick read and I cried at the end.
*checks star rating*
Well, about that... It's no coincidence that it's my first 1 star rating of the year and it definitely deserves its place. I did cry. Because of annoyance and anger/frustration, that is.And I've never cried out of anger before, so there's that. These were the only two (three) emotions I felt during the entire book and I really can't understand why I kept on reading. It's not as if there aren't any other books on ku but now it's too late.
Vhalla hoped she was off to a good start. He looked at her hopefully. She tried to swallow the odd guilt that sprung up at his hopeful stare
First of, this book needed another round of edits. Three "hopes" in three consecutive sentences, really? A couple of smirkes and smirking also should have been cut at the beginning. It was so overused that it pissed me off long before I gave up on this book.
But my quote goes on...
She wanted to refuse him, but she had no logical reason to.
Yeah, I can think of few reasons. Still going on, though:
It wasn't as though she were spoken for, and time was ticking for her if she were to assume the natural roles of womanhood
She is 18...
I mean yeah, one could obviously argue that she has internalized the sexism of the older women working at the palace.
But really, it didn't feel that way, otherwise she would have mentioned something in that vein.
Also, thanks for that. Now I feel like a crone and I'm barely older than her.
So... The plot
1. Well, this book lied to me. I assumed it was a fantasy book, going of the title, the cover and the synopsis. And, ya know, it being shelved as fantasy by everyone and their mother.
It's not though. Not reeeeeaaaally. It's a romance with a few buzz words maybe excluding the climax, if I'm squinting really hard . The whole reason for this book going on for so long is Vhalla's character.
2. The plot was really predictable as well, and super cliched. I guessed what would happen as soon as the appeared. I guessed that she would be long before that, although I was a bit skeptical. Not because I didn't think that I could predict every plot point as easily as I did but because I didn't even think that much would happen.
I mean, it was only a romance so refer to point one
3. The story kind of reminded me of The Novice by Trudy Canavan , with the whole awakening and being reluctant at first to join the wizards/ sorcerers.
But alas, in the novice stuff happened. Here it didn't.
4. It also reminded me of The Bookworm . But again, stuff happened in there. Here, nothing.
5. Although, to be fair, there was a climax and stuffdid happen pretended to, at least. Billie Eilish would be proud . What happened afterwards was super dumb though. It felt so forced, just to add conflict to the story and also move it to where it had to go unfortunately probably end game, they had to be reunited. Such unpredictability, much wow.
Also, pardon my french but fuck the ending. Fuck. It just felt so forced and things happened because there needed to be doubt and the question of if
The characters
1. Vhalla:
She is bland. She is boring. If she was a spice, she'd be salt. If she was an ice-cream flavour, she'd be vanilla. If she was a stone, she'd be a perfectly round pebble without any edges. She is your typical self-insert character. Plain, but everyone finds her beautiful. So beautiful, that not 1, not 2, but 3 different good-looking guys are into her. Because what this book really needed was a love square, right?
Well, while were at it, she is a Mary Sue and a speshiul snowflake and the biggest walking clichée there is. Because, you see, she is the only one of her kind, a Windwalker. Her powers are super special and she hardly struggles with them. The only time she actually struggled was when the plot demanded it at the climax. But the story is so predictable you can probably guess how long it took her to regain control...
Vhalla didn't have a will of her own. Why couldn't she just tell Sareem that she wasn't interested? Why couldn't she just act out of her own volition once?
Aldrick said that she was intelligent, but she really wasn't. She asked stupid questions that she should have known the answer or waterbending, er trying to shift water and not realising why she can't do it cus she's a Windwalker, duh or also it's really stupid that the stuff with the phantom never came up again . Also, I totally blame her for I'm obviously not being serious, but this really was so apparent that it annoyed me when it acutally played out exactly as I had expected it
Her best and most redeeming quality, without a doubt, was her uselessness though. I mean why be a strong and powerful sorcerer when you can rely on being protected by your prince, right? We stan a weak female heroine, a kick-no-assqueen library apprentice remember, she's just that. Nothing special here. Moving on .
Seriously, this reminds me of Bella of Twilight more than anything. And that's one of my worst insults, lol.
What annoyed me the most about her though and made the book almost unreadable was her stubborn insistence on being not special at all. She was stubborn to the point of idiocy. Why didn't she believe the sorcerers that she had powers? Why was she so against them and insisted to be Eradicated (=getting her powers taken away from her)?
The author might have pulled her off as a reluctant choosen one if it weren't for the the fact that it wasn't believable. I never felt like I understood why she thought that way. She just dug her feet into the ground and the next what, 200 pages? were spent on here coming to accept that she is, in fact, the most special snowflake to have ever graced their world.
Also, there was something weirdly off about Vhalla's description and behaviour. I actually paused reading the book just to check whether the author was male or female. Obviously Elise Kova is a woman but I would have thought Vhalla was written by a man. I can't put my finger on as to why exactly, but I thought it was noteworthy.
2. Sareem
Ah yes, the childhood friend who is at first secretly, for years, later openly in love with the main character. Obviously she wasn't into him, so there was never the question of will-they-won't-they. He also didn't feel like a friend to her, except for one or two brief moments. Roan and Cadence seemed to be way more closer to Vhalla than him.
So when predictability hit the plot again and heOh no, who could have seen that coming! I laughed. It was so funny to me. Was I expected to feel anything? He was obviously just there for the love triangle and for the emotional impact. I didn't care about him one bit.
Well, that's not entirely true. I felt bad for him that Vhalla was such a pussy and couldn't just 'fess up that she didn't have any feelings for him. There really wasn't a reason for her not to.
3. Baldair
Why did he appear later in the story? Why was his presence necessary at all? To continue the forced love triangle later in the series? Oh, oh, wait, let me guess. He either ends up with Roan or dies or both later in the series don't know if I'm going to bother to check though
4. Larel
What was her point if she was never supposed to be Vhalla's teacher? To force some conflict between Vhalla and Aldrick?
5. Egmun
He did god's work. Should have let them killed Vhalla while he could.
6. Roan
She was nice, despite rivaling Vhalla in blandness and personalitylessness. And then the plot demanded to be her to be at the wrong time at the wrong place so there'd be more drama well, some drama .
7. The sorcerer's minister
I don't understand what Vhalla's problem was with him.Besides the obvious, him trying to kidnap her . But she already had a problem with him before. Why not talk to him at the library? Yeah yeah, she might have had her prejudices, but she could at least have believed that she actually saved the prince's life and that she wasn't going to get killed for it. Remember, she is just so very intelligent.
8. Master Mohned
He was only there to highlight Vhalla's specialness. Because why have a girl that only isbeautiful that everyone from servants to princes comments on it plain and intelligent, if she could also have been his protégée and successor as the librarian even though she was reading the whole time instead of working. Really don't get why he'd chose her and not Roan or someone else.
9. Fritz
Why did he appear only so briefly? I'm going to guess that he appears in later books of the series, otherwise he was completly pointless.
10.Cadence
Ok, ok I'm fucking with you. You've been all waiting for him or not, but you kept reading this far so *shrugs* :
10. Aldrik
He was an abusive POS who smirked way too much in the beginning, I don't care that he knew that it wouldn't kill her. Grounded people don't go around and push other people of tall buildings and made me uncomfortable the whole time. I thought that we had left love interests like him (=that act though but are secretly sweet, they only don't show it and stuff ) named Tsunderes (except for the abuse part), as I've been told by my sister who is much better versed in popculture than me but that are really just abusers and/or jerks back in the Twilight era. I hope he dies at the end of the last book of the series. Or earlier, but looking at the title of Crystal crowned I'm just going to take the wild guess that Vhalla is enough of a dumb bitch to marry him.
The worldbuilding
What worldbuilding?
The magic system isn't that creative. It's just kinda copied Avatar: The Last Airbender. Elemental magic isn't new in fantasy. I don't get why this book gets as much praise for this as it does although I will admit that magic systems based on the elements always seemed more interesting to me than others.
The different parts of the world having different connections to the elements is also lifted straight from there.
We don't learn much aside from that and how the different people look. So that we know how the main character and the love interests look. And the bad people. Bad people = green. at least they aren't poc vs the good white people, looking at you ATLA film whose exact name I can't be bothered to look up.
We also don't learn much about the religion or the different cultures. I wouldn't blame it for that if it weren't for the fact that I thought this was supposed to be fantasy and not romance???
The clichées
Oh boy. For the sake of brevity no really, I don't need to let this review get as long as the book, the low page count being one of it's few redeeming qualities this is only going to be in list format. And I'm going to put it into a spoiler, although I doubt that there will be much if anything spoiled.
- Her thinking of herself as plain
- Actually being pretty
- Getting a make over and thinking of herself as pretty afterwards
- Love square
- Her cutting her hair at the end, indicating her change
- The prince being the mysterious figure in her dreams
- The prince being the phantom, her mysterious teacher
- The prince being really sensitive on the inside
- The prince and Vhalla falling for each other
- The Prince being an abusive pos. oh wait, that doesn't belong here
- Her being useless and needing to be protected by Aldrik, but using her powers in the last moment to save him.
I probably missed a few, and will add them later on. Maybe. Probably not, though
Conclusion
Honestly, my 14 year old self might have enjoyed this book. Up until the first two thirds, she would have liked it. Not loved it, she was way too much into actual fantasy high fantasy. But she would have liked it.
But even 14 year old self wouldn't have forgiven Vhalla for her stuborness to get Eradicated. Vhalla is really unconvincing and there doesn't seem to be any reason for her to think that way except the plot demands her to.And I'm only insisting on this because her changing her mind is literally the plot of the first 250 pages or so.
Also, 14 year old me despised self inserts with a passion, so I hope we would have both agreed on this book being just bad.
To be quite honest, people who are into romance or younger teens actually might quite enjoy it and *squints* I can kinda see where some of the positive reviews are coming from. Still can't recommend it just because Aldrik is a viable love interest and how problematic that is.
*checks star rating*
Well, about that... It's no coincidence that it's my first 1 star rating of the year and it definitely deserves its place. I did cry. Because of annoyance and anger/frustration, that is.
Vhalla hoped she was off to a good start. He looked at her hopefully. She tried to swallow the odd guilt that sprung up at his hopeful stare
First of, this book needed another round of edits. Three "hopes" in three consecutive sentences, really? A couple of smirkes and smirking also should have been cut at the beginning. It was so overused that it pissed me off long before I gave up on this book.
But my quote goes on...
She wanted to refuse him, but she had no logical reason to.
Yeah, I can think of few reasons. Still going on, though:
It wasn't as though she were spoken for, and time was ticking for her if she were to assume the natural roles of womanhood
She is 18...
I mean yeah, one could obviously argue that she has internalized the sexism of the older women working at the palace.
But really, it didn't feel that way, otherwise she would have mentioned something in that vein.
Also, thanks for that. Now I feel like a crone and I'm barely older than her.
So... The plot
1. Well, this book lied to me. I assumed it was a fantasy book, going of the title, the cover and the synopsis. And, ya know, it being shelved as fantasy by everyone and their mother.
It's not though. Not reeeeeaaaally. It's a romance with a few buzz words
2. The plot was really predictable as well, and super cliched. I guessed what would happen as soon as the
Spoiler
jugglers from the northSpoiler
sent to the front against her willI mean, it was only a romance
3. The story kind of reminded me of The Novice by Trudy Canavan , with the whole awakening and being reluctant at first to join the wizards/ sorcerers.
But alas, in the novice stuff happened. Here it didn't.
4. It also reminded me of The Bookworm . But again, stuff happened in there. Here, nothing.
5. Although, to be fair, there was a climax and stuff
Spoiler
again, the attack on the city was super predictable. As soon as the juggler told everyone to wait for their big finale, it was crystal clear when the attack would happen and who the attackers would be. That's not leaving breadcrumbs. That's advertising that you're the bad guySpoiler
obviously Vhalla had to go to the front, because I know that this book has not 1 but 4 following books and since Aldrik and her areAlso, pardon my french but fuck the ending. Fuck
Spoiler
Aldrik not saying anything in her defense. He might claim that he would damn her, but just pulling the con at the beginning and insisting on her innocence and him being her teacher would have prevented her from the physical assault she had to endure and the emotional distress. And that after saving his life again and being exhausted by the fight and feeling guilty her childhood friend's deathSpoiler
Aldrik thought of her as a murderer, uwuThe characters
1. Vhalla:
She is bland. She is boring. If she was a spice, she'd be salt. If she was an ice-cream flavour, she'd be vanilla. If she was a stone, she'd be a perfectly round pebble without any edges. She is your typical self-insert character. Plain, but everyone finds her beautiful. So beautiful, that not 1, not 2, but 3 different good-looking guys are into her. Because what this book really needed was a love square, right?
Well, while were at it, she is a Mary Sue and a speshiul snowflake and the biggest walking clichée there is. Because, you see, she is the only one of her kind, a Windwalker. Her powers are super special and she hardly struggles with them. The only time she actually struggled was when the plot demanded it at the climax. But the story is so predictable you can probably guess how long it took her to regain control...
Vhalla didn't have a will of her own. Why couldn't she just tell Sareem that she wasn't interested? Why couldn't she just act out of her own volition once?
Aldrick said that she was intelligent, but she really wasn't. She asked stupid questions that she should have known the answer
Spoiler
like asking whether the fire would burn him towards the climax of the story, after having learned that bit of information way earlier by LarelSpoiler
trying to doSpoiler
wanting to learn more about sorcerers but not going to the tower and just ... asking? You know, going to the place where the sorcerers live? Where they keep all their knowledge? Because her prejudices aren't an excuse here, she knew that the phantom was a sorcerer as wellSpoiler
being pushed of the tower by Aldrik. This was so predictable. Girl, learn to read the roomHer best and most redeeming quality, without a doubt, was her uselessness though. I mean why be a strong and powerful sorcerer when you can rely on being protected by your prince, right? We stan a weak female heroine, a kick-no-ass
Seriously, this reminds me of Bella of Twilight more than anything.
What annoyed me the most about her though and made the book almost unreadable was her stubborn insistence on being not special at all. She was stubborn to the point of idiocy. Why didn't she believe the sorcerers that she had powers? Why was she so against them and insisted to be Eradicated (=getting her powers taken away from her)?
The author might have pulled her off as a reluctant choosen one if it weren't for the the fact that it wasn't believable. I never felt like I understood why she thought that way. She just dug her feet into the ground and the next what, 200 pages? were spent on here coming to accept that she is, in fact, the most special snowflake to have ever graced their world.
2. Sareem
Ah yes, the childhood friend who is
So when predictability hit the plot again and he
Spoiler
diedWell, that's not entirely true. I felt bad for him that Vhalla was such a pussy and couldn't just 'fess up that she didn't have any feelings for him. There really wasn't a reason for her not to.
3. Baldair
Why did he appear later in the story? Why was his presence necessary at all? To continue the forced love triangle later in the series?
4. Larel
What was her point if she was never supposed to be Vhalla's teacher? To force some conflict between Vhalla and Aldrick?
5. Egmun
He did god's work. Should have let them killed Vhalla while he could.
6. Roan
She was nice, despite rivaling Vhalla in blandness and personalitylessness. And then the plot demanded to be her to be at the wrong time at the wrong place so there'd be more drama
7. The sorcerer's minister
I don't understand what Vhalla's problem was with him.
8. Master Mohned
He was only there to highlight Vhalla's specialness. Because why have a girl that only is
9. Fritz
Why did he appear only so briefly? I'm going to guess that he appears in later books of the series, otherwise he was completly pointless.
10.
Ok, ok I'm fucking with you.
10. Aldrik
He was an abusive POS who smirked way too much in the beginning,
Spoiler
pushed Vhalla of a towerThe worldbuilding
What worldbuilding?
The magic system isn't that creative. It's just kinda copied Avatar: The Last Airbender. Elemental magic isn't new in fantasy. I don't get why this book gets as much praise for this as it does
The different parts of the world having different connections to the elements is also lifted straight from there.
We don't learn much aside from that and how the different people look. So that we know how the main character and the love interests look. And the bad people. Bad people = green.
We also don't learn much about the religion or the different cultures. I wouldn't blame it for that if it weren't for the fact that I thought this was supposed to be fantasy and not romance???
The clichées
Oh boy. For the sake of brevity
Spoiler
- Vhalla being the only of her kind, her powers being so very special- Her thinking of herself as plain
- Actually being pretty
- Getting a make over and thinking of herself as pretty afterwards
- Love square
- Her cutting her hair at the end, indicating her change
- The prince being the mysterious figure in her dreams
- The prince being the phantom, her mysterious teacher
- The prince being really sensitive on the inside
- The prince and Vhalla falling for each other
Spoiler
- Sareem, as a close person to her, dieing at the climax- Her being useless and needing to be protected by Aldrik, but using her powers in the last moment to save him.
I probably missed a few, and will add them later on. Maybe.
Conclusion
Honestly, my 14 year old self might have enjoyed this book. Up until the first two thirds, she would have liked it. Not loved it, she was way too much into
But even 14 year old self wouldn't have forgiven Vhalla for her stuborness to get Eradicated. Vhalla is really unconvincing and there doesn't seem to be any reason for her to think that way except the plot demands her to.
Also, 14 year old me despised self inserts with a passion, so I hope we would have both agreed on this book being just bad.
Nothing really happens but I found myself more interested in the second half of the story. But make no mistake- this story moves so slowly. The heroine got on my nerves too because she never really progresses. I'll try reading the second book in this series.
This book was OK. I just didn’t connect with any of the characters and I found the main character to be annoying and a little bit whiny. The plot kind of just stayed in the same place the whole entire book and the love interest also was a little bit stagnant. They confessed at the very end, but that was like a few pages literally to the end, I want to read the next books but at the same time I don’t so we will see if I do