Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.98 AVERAGE
3.98 AVERAGE
adventurous
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
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:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
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:
No
Karigan's growth in this book was well written. Going from a sheltered merchant's daughter to a well travelled traveller/adventurer was really nicely paced. We got some really delightful moments and some really dark moments but none of them overstayed their welcome. I am excited to see what is in-store for the next novel.
Content Warnings
Minor: Violence, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail
I have some passion for YA, as they are called today, and this was a more than decent book for young people of any age. Sadly, in many aspects it falls rather flat.
The plot is quite straightforward, and the conflicts and dramatic moments are never really resolved by the MC, they kind of put themselves back on kilter on their own, and that said, our girl Karigan never really gets to decide much. I fully believe that this book would have been better if the author didn't fall to the temptation of stringing deus ex machina one after the other to save Karigan from making hard choices. Everything in a book is always contrived: it's written word, and the brain is not a random generator. Making those look natural, reasoned, feasible and logic is one of the joys of being a writer. Fact is, here the protagonist fails to affect the plot, and at times she is far less important than her sword or the messages she is carrying. A book about a fantasy teenage schoolkid that improvises being a messenger in a deadly fantasy world should have been better served by being about surviving mistakes and running and difficult plans, and much less about meeting disneyesque magic helpers like some Aladdin from a barbaric folk fable and blindly accepting any hand-out. Yes, true, even Kerigan questions this setup at times, but fact is, apart from some cursory self-deprecating remark to underline her hardships, she's the author's little soldier, never really wavering and marching on with a nod from the Plot and a little encouraging whack on her behind each time she falters.
I read a lot of people liked the writing style of Kristen Britain. I did not. It felt terribly telly, it feeds out a lot of information about how our MC feels and not many about what she senses or her emotions, and sometimes it goes right above the threshold of her POV to tell us things we wouldn't know at all. It feels like reading the commentary as spoken by a terribly pedantic old lady in a radio drama, and what is worse it is a time pretty repetitive when the author struggles to drive an important concept home. It was all Terry Goodkindy in the worst places, and not only in the style: I got an eerie feeling of familiarity when the author took a lot of unnecessary space to explain the "evils" of organized dissent in a book where it had really no sense or place.
Let's get back to the strange encounters our Karigan makes across the road. A book about traveling is of course about meeting weird people that challenge both reader and character. Sadly, they feel like a disjointed, sorry lot that ape throwaway and character-building chapters in Tolkien and Lloyd Alexander, but never quite amaze and enchant with their quaintness. This is also true about the antagonists. They all obey to the rule of being fucking cartoony. The military captain with the whip (of course, without a prop he would be just a soldier); the degenerate, magic-boosted prince that gloats and tortures people because he is eee-vul; the genetically evil elf whose confusing magic won't simply fucking work, ever; the cruel old redneck noble that stops mid-thought to muse about PG-13 dirty sex, and who apparently has been executing random peons all his life since nobody in the Good Realm gives a fuck (I suppose not slaughtering people makes you a GOOD monarch, here);
Let me get it straight. It's not a book about hard questions, and that's not a problem. Its main defect is answering the easy questions for the reader, and frankly I do not think that a teenager is too stupid to work out the difference between good and evil on his or her own. A little more nuance and at least a token attempt at having the main character work through a difficult situation with her own developing moral compass wouldn't have hurt.
The plot is quite straightforward, and the conflicts and dramatic moments are never really resolved by the MC, they kind of put themselves back on kilter on their own, and that said, our girl Karigan never really gets to decide much. I fully believe that this book would have been better if the author didn't fall to the temptation of stringing deus ex machina one after the other to save Karigan from making hard choices. Everything in a book is always contrived: it's written word, and the brain is not a random generator. Making those look natural, reasoned, feasible and logic is one of the joys of being a writer. Fact is, here the protagonist fails to affect the plot, and at times she is far less important than her sword or the messages she is carrying. A book about a fantasy teenage schoolkid that improvises being a messenger in a deadly fantasy world should have been better served by being about surviving mistakes and running and difficult plans, and much less about meeting disneyesque magic helpers like some Aladdin from a barbaric folk fable and blindly accepting any hand-out. Yes, true, even Kerigan questions this setup at times, but fact is, apart from some cursory self-deprecating remark to underline her hardships, she's the author's little soldier, never really wavering and marching on with a nod from the Plot and a little encouraging whack on her behind each time she falters.
I read a lot of people liked the writing style of Kristen Britain. I did not. It felt terribly telly, it feeds out a lot of information about how our MC feels and not many about what she senses or her emotions, and sometimes it goes right above the threshold of her POV to tell us things we wouldn't know at all. It feels like reading the commentary as spoken by a terribly pedantic old lady in a radio drama, and what is worse it is a time pretty repetitive when the author struggles to drive an important concept home. It was all Terry Goodkindy in the worst places, and not only in the style: I got an eerie feeling of familiarity when the author took a lot of unnecessary space to explain the "evils" of organized dissent in a book where it had really no sense or place.
Let's get back to the strange encounters our Karigan makes across the road. A book about traveling is of course about meeting weird people that challenge both reader and character. Sadly, they feel like a disjointed, sorry lot that ape throwaway and character-building chapters in Tolkien and Lloyd Alexander, but never quite amaze and enchant with their quaintness. This is also true about the antagonists. They all obey to the rule of being fucking cartoony. The military captain with the whip (of course, without a prop he would be just a soldier); the degenerate, magic-boosted prince that gloats and tortures people because he is eee-vul; the genetically evil elf whose confusing magic won't simply fucking work, ever; the cruel old redneck noble that stops mid-thought to muse about PG-13 dirty sex, and who apparently has been executing random peons all his life since nobody in the Good Realm gives a fuck (I suppose not slaughtering people makes you a GOOD monarch, here);
Let me get it straight. It's not a book about hard questions, and that's not a problem. Its main defect is answering the easy questions for the reader, and frankly I do not think that a teenager is too stupid to work out the difference between good and evil on his or her own. A little more nuance and at least a token attempt at having the main character work through a difficult situation with her own developing moral compass wouldn't have hurt.
adventurous
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
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:
No
Overall I liked this book. We love a strong FMC, and Karigan didn’t disappoint. Also can’t go without mentioning how much I loved Bayberry & Bunchberry.
adventurous
challenging
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:
No
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
mysterious
fast-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