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3.81 AVERAGE
3.81 AVERAGE
Decided I wasn't retaining enough of the story listening sporadically. Bought the book.
medium-paced
*whistle* great messy tangled plots and family lines. A great complex fantasy with an entertaining cast and high stakes. Gotta love the ending. And the God of luck!
I really loved this story. So many twists and turns, so much magic and lore! The reason for the three stars, though, is I felt like I was reading two different books at the same time. This book is split between two different time lines going back and forth throughout the entirety of the book. This is really frustrating. This easily could have been two different books of the same length as this one. Why dilute it down to one? This book could have been so much more, and yet it falls short of its potential.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
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
Where this book didn’t start out so great for me, I did end up enjoying it, and then I found myself hella confused. While I felt this book had a bit of a slow start for me, I became very invested with the story as it continued, and where the back and forth duel perspective got on my nerves for a little while, my brain began to go with the flow to the point where I wasn’t huffing every chapter. But when we switch solely to third party narration, I admit I was a little ticked off.
I found it very interesting to learn about the same person in two very different stages of life. While Kihrin’s story was in the present, starting off on an auction block and being sold to The Black Brotherhood, being stranded on an island, and becoming the main fascination of a Dragon. Talon’s story was told in the third person when Kihrin was a boy living in the city as a thief and musician, who’s life was very quickly turned upside down when he was marked by a demon prince, his adoptive family was murdered, and he was found to be a long lost member of a noble household.
I was very interested in both of these stories. I found them both to start out mundane and then slowly add more intricate information and more plot twists with every chapter. While I did feel less frustrated about it the constant chapter by chapter story change, it did still make it somewhat difficult to become fully immersed in either narrative.
Also, I love Galen. Love. Him.
Around chapter 60 was the point this book started to lose me. In Kihrin’s story, it very quickly became a huge information dump that was really hard to follow on audio. I found myself slowly losing momentum to finish as I lost my understanding of what was going on. We were meant to take in the information and put the puzzle together as Kihrin did, but I feel like we weren’t given enough background information to be able to do that.
There was just a whole lot of people being reborn and name changing and marriages and children that were only mentioned and glossed over until their pieces needed to be added to the puzzle, and I found myself confused.
When we got towards the end, I liked the storyline of the plan all the way from how to get away from The Old Man, to Kihrin needing to leave the city as an unfortunate repercussion, and in the last 15 chapters, I can honestly say I was brought right back into the story.
I have mixed feelings about this book. I liked the second quarter, and I liked the last quarter. But the first and third just had me either falling asleep or un-situationally frustrated.
All in all, I gave this book 3 stars and I am planning on reading The Name of All Things upon release on October 29th, 2019.
I found it very interesting to learn about the same person in two very different stages of life. While Kihrin’s story was in the present, starting off on an auction block and being sold to The Black Brotherhood, being stranded on an island, and becoming the main fascination of a Dragon. Talon’s story was told in the third person when Kihrin was a boy living in the city as a thief and musician, who’s life was very quickly turned upside down when he was marked by a demon prince, his adoptive family was murdered, and he was found to be a long lost member of a noble household.
I was very interested in both of these stories. I found them both to start out mundane and then slowly add more intricate information and more plot twists with every chapter. While I did feel less frustrated about it the constant chapter by chapter story change, it did still make it somewhat difficult to become fully immersed in either narrative.
Also, I love Galen. Love. Him.
Around chapter 60 was the point this book started to lose me. In Kihrin’s story, it very quickly became a huge information dump that was really hard to follow on audio. I found myself slowly losing momentum to finish as I lost my understanding of what was going on. We were meant to take in the information and put the puzzle together as Kihrin did, but I feel like we weren’t given enough background information to be able to do that.
There was just a whole lot of people being reborn and name changing and marriages and children that were only mentioned and glossed over until their pieces needed to be added to the puzzle, and I found myself confused.
When we got towards the end, I liked the storyline of the plan all the way from how to get away from The Old Man, to Kihrin needing to leave the city as an unfortunate repercussion, and in the last 15 chapters, I can honestly say I was brought right back into the story.
I have mixed feelings about this book. I liked the second quarter, and I liked the last quarter. But the first and third just had me either falling asleep or un-situationally frustrated.
All in all, I gave this book 3 stars and I am planning on reading The Name of All Things upon release on October 29th, 2019.
Whew. That was a ride! I'm not going to lie, I was so confused towards the beginning of the book. Let us dive in. And as always, spoiler free.
We start off with the MC, Kihrin, who's imprisoned in the current timeline, retelling the events that led to his capture. But he's only telling a partial part of his past. Talon, who has him jailed, is telling the beginning of his story. 3 timelines, told by 2 individuals with a narrator like type popping in here and there with something like footnotes as this overall is a written account by this narrator type individual. I know....confusing.
But overall, once you get the timelines down and understand what's really happening...it's a wild time. The world building is done really well. And all the characters were fantastic. I personally enjoyed Talon, and her telling of Kihrin's past were actually more favorable to me than Kihrin himself. The footnote type narrator had his moments as well. I really enjoyed this and with the outcome of the ending...I'm definitely going to be continuing this series very near in the future. Needed more dragons since it is dragon month for me.
We start off with the MC, Kihrin, who's imprisoned in the current timeline, retelling the events that led to his capture. But he's only telling a partial part of his past. Talon, who has him jailed, is telling the beginning of his story. 3 timelines, told by 2 individuals with a narrator like type popping in here and there with something like footnotes as this overall is a written account by this narrator type individual. I know....confusing.
But overall, once you get the timelines down and understand what's really happening...it's a wild time. The world building is done really well. And all the characters were fantastic. I personally enjoyed Talon, and her telling of Kihrin's past were actually more favorable to me than Kihrin himself. The footnote type narrator had his moments as well. I really enjoyed this and with the outcome of the ending...I'm definitely going to be continuing this series very near in the future. Needed more dragons since it is dragon month for me.
adventurous
dark
slow-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:
Complicated
Found to be confusing, and not very exciting. Too many details at some points. Story doesn't progress fast enough for me.
adventurous
dark
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
I enjoyed reading this book, but it's all so, so complicated. It's like an entire soap opera who is related to who, how, and how much abuse there is. It's handled way more tastefully than a lot of other authors do, so the characters have a quality of resilience that does connect. So much happens, but the back and forth nature of the narrative does feel a bit as if it's mostly just set up. The end has a climax, yet it's very obvious that there's so much left. That's great, in a way. But there are a lot of books in this set, and I am absolutely sure I'm going to forget who everyone is and all that nitty gritty detail by the time I get around to reading the second, so it's pretty daunting.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Slavery
Moderate: Sexual content, War