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A review by adriannamiller01
Daughter of Light by Garrett Curbow
1.0
DNF
Honestly, I'm disappointed. I was excited about this book, but it was rough. I only read 155/434 pages. I really struggled to get through this book. I'm not interested in the characters at all, and the writing is making it very hard to continue.
I read this on KU and made many notes, particularly when things didn't make sense.
Before I get into the issues that I had with the book, I want to talk about what I liked.
For example, the language that the author uses is very mature, which is something I enjoy, it reminds me a lot of SJM's writing.
This book was written in 3rd person (I think it would've been better in 1st person), and we follow a few different POV's, again, similar to SJM's books (I'm using her as an example because I just finished reading all of her books, so she's on my mind HEAVY). Out of all the POV's, I enjoyed Eileen's the most.
Negatives:
The author does a really good job of painting a picture, he is pretty descriptive about scenery, but what he lacks in is the historical part of world-building. We get introduced to so many different places, people, and beings, but we get virtually no background. For example, Saoirse. I believe that is the god that the witches worship, and there is a different god that the warlocks worshipped, but we don't find out about who that actually is until past the 100 page mark, and even then, we still don't know who that is. Eileen says things like "Saoirse save me", but then will say "oh gods..." like, which is it?
Another thing that doesn't sit right with me is the Sand War. This war happened 16 years ago when the witches (who possess fire abilities) fought against the warlocks (who possess water abilities) and went extinct... I'm no physicist, but I'm pretty sure water beats out fire 10x out of 10. I also doubt the warlocks are completely extinct.
Also, witches (female) and warlocks (male) cannot reproduce, and that's all we know. We never get a deeper dive into why they can't, just that they can't., except for Eileen, she is the one and only exception. Which again, I doubt.
We got a whole 2 pages of Prince Finn sitting in class, not paying attention because he had to pee so bad. That was the only purpose of the scene. The only thing we learned was the name of a temple and that this Prince was about to piss his pants... There is just so much in this book that could've been deleted and replaced with more world-building, character development, and historical insights to this world. When you're writing a fantasy novel (this is a series, so especially here), you are typically introducing a new world, so we need to understand everything we can about it, same with the characters. I can't really picture any of them because they don't get physically described, like ever. We also don't see much of their personalities, the all just seem bland.
We don't get any info on the creation of witches and warlocks.
Winona is described as having "bird eyes and beak nose", can they shapeshift? Does she actually look like a bird, or is this an insult?
We also get this scene where Loren is telling Eileen that the King may have killed his brother, who was a warlock, and the previous king who dies mysteriously during the Sand War. All we know is that he died mysteriously... not sure what that means. But that's not even why I'm bringing this up. So this conversation happened, and Eileen acted super shocked about this discovery ("A chill prickled the back of Eileen's neck. 'He what?'"), but literally like 5 pages ago, this same conversation happened and it was just blown over... I-
Also, the whole with Queen thing doesn't make sense. There isn't a Queen, but one girl wants to be one so now she is running for Queen, but we don't get any info on the politics of this which I wish we got so that I could understand.
My biggest pet peeve in this whole book is Leon Hadar. He is the KING. Yet in EVERY POV we get, EVERYONE refers to him as Leon Hadar. Even his son... he doesn't refer to him as father, dad, King, nope... Leon Hadar. Not King, King Leon, or even just Leon... Leon Hadar. It pisses me off.
I don't want to keep ripping into this book even more... it just wasn't it... sorry, love.
I tried to keep reading it because I wanted to know if my questions will be answered, but I doubt they will be. I also tried to keep reading because the second book is coming out in 2 months and I'm hoping there is some sort of redemption.
Maybe I'll pick this up again and try to get through it. I'll keep you posted.
Honestly, I'm disappointed. I was excited about this book, but it was rough. I only read 155/434 pages. I really struggled to get through this book. I'm not interested in the characters at all, and the writing is making it very hard to continue.
I read this on KU and made many notes, particularly when things didn't make sense.
Before I get into the issues that I had with the book, I want to talk about what I liked.
For example, the language that the author uses is very mature, which is something I enjoy, it reminds me a lot of SJM's writing.
This book was written in 3rd person (I think it would've been better in 1st person), and we follow a few different POV's, again, similar to SJM's books (I'm using her as an example because I just finished reading all of her books, so she's on my mind HEAVY). Out of all the POV's, I enjoyed Eileen's the most.
Negatives:
The author does a really good job of painting a picture, he is pretty descriptive about scenery, but what he lacks in is the historical part of world-building. We get introduced to so many different places, people, and beings, but we get virtually no background. For example, Saoirse. I believe that is the god that the witches worship, and there is a different god that the warlocks worshipped, but we don't find out about who that actually is until past the 100 page mark, and even then, we still don't know who that is. Eileen says things like "Saoirse save me", but then will say "oh gods..." like, which is it?
Another thing that doesn't sit right with me is the Sand War. This war happened 16 years ago when the witches (who possess fire abilities) fought against the warlocks (who possess water abilities) and went extinct... I'm no physicist, but I'm pretty sure water beats out fire 10x out of 10. I also doubt the warlocks are completely extinct.
Also, witches (female) and warlocks (male) cannot reproduce, and that's all we know. We never get a deeper dive into why they can't, just that they can't., except for Eileen, she is the one and only exception. Which again, I doubt.
We got a whole 2 pages of Prince Finn sitting in class, not paying attention because he had to pee so bad. That was the only purpose of the scene. The only thing we learned was the name of a temple and that this Prince was about to piss his pants... There is just so much in this book that could've been deleted and replaced with more world-building, character development, and historical insights to this world. When you're writing a fantasy novel (this is a series, so especially here), you are typically introducing a new world, so we need to understand everything we can about it, same with the characters. I can't really picture any of them because they don't get physically described, like ever. We also don't see much of their personalities, the all just seem bland.
We don't get any info on the creation of witches and warlocks.
Winona is described as having "bird eyes and beak nose", can they shapeshift? Does she actually look like a bird, or is this an insult?
We also get this scene where Loren is telling Eileen that the King may have killed his brother, who was a warlock, and the previous king who dies mysteriously during the Sand War. All we know is that he died mysteriously... not sure what that means. But that's not even why I'm bringing this up. So this conversation happened, and Eileen acted super shocked about this discovery ("A chill prickled the back of Eileen's neck. 'He what?'"), but literally like 5 pages ago, this same conversation happened and it was just blown over... I-
Also, the whole with Queen thing doesn't make sense. There isn't a Queen, but one girl wants to be one so now she is running for Queen, but we don't get any info on the politics of this which I wish we got so that I could understand.
My biggest pet peeve in this whole book is Leon Hadar. He is the KING. Yet in EVERY POV we get, EVERYONE refers to him as Leon Hadar. Even his son... he doesn't refer to him as father, dad, King, nope... Leon Hadar. Not King, King Leon, or even just Leon... Leon Hadar. It pisses me off.
I don't want to keep ripping into this book even more... it just wasn't it... sorry, love.
I tried to keep reading it because I wanted to know if my questions will be answered, but I doubt they will be. I also tried to keep reading because the second book is coming out in 2 months and I'm hoping there is some sort of redemption.
Maybe I'll pick this up again and try to get through it. I'll keep you posted.