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A review by erinarkin20
Given to the Sea by Mindy McGinnis
3.0
Given to the Sea by Mindy McGinnis is a book I have been anticipating since I heard about it. I loved McGinnis’ other books and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this one since it falls into my favorite genre, Fantasy.
This story has multiple POVs and I admit, at first the book felt really choppy as we were jumping from one POV to the next and the chapters were fairly short. The Witt chapters were the ones that made things feel off for me and I suppose it is because the other characters are with each other. With that said, once the story picked up for me, it didn’t seem as distracting.
The world that McGinnis has created is interesting. The Kingdom of Stille has always had a Given who dances into the sea and the belief is that she is what prevents a wave from destroying the kingdom like it did before. Khosa is the Given and was expected to be ready to go by now but before she can, she has to have an heir. The problem for her is that she can’t stand the touch of any other human and now things are at a point where she may not get a choice about what happens. Even though she struggles with human touch, there is one person she is drawn to.
Vince is the third in line for the throne and when Khosa shows up at the castle, he can’t help but be drawn to her even if she is destined to die. As time progresses, Vince does what he can to protect her but his father has made it very difficult for him. He is willing to give up everything to protect Khosa but when the plan goes awry, things change for both of them.
Donil and Dara grew up with Vince but they are considered outsiders by most of Stille. They are Indiri, a race connected to the earth, and they possess magic. While Donil aligns to life, Dara aligns to death and while these attributes help them, they also cause some problems. When Vince and Khosa learn more about them and their magic, things change for all of them.Vince (and his mother) has always considered Donil and Dara family and they are all pretty close but when Khosa arrives, things shift a bit for them.
Let’s talk about feelings for a moment. Dara has always felt something for Vince and now she sees that Khosa has drawn Vince’s attention. This has created some definite tension between Dara and Khosa and it eventually comes to a head. Remember when I said that Khosa is drawn to someone…well that happens to be Donil. There is something about Donil that allows Khosa to touch him without flinching or drawing back. So…now we have Dara loves Vince, Vince loves Khosa, and Khosa has feelings for Donil. We do get to see how things end up for this group by the end of the book but I am curious to see where McGinnis will take this in the next book.
Outside of these relationships, there is another vein to this story and that ties back to Witt’s chapters. He leads the Pietra and they are driven to get more land so that his people can survive. Because of this, a war is coming to Stille and they are in no way prepared to fight such a strong army. Add to that, the agreement Witt makes with Ank, the leader of the Feneen, and they really have no chance considering how much they lost the last time they faced the Feneen. I’m looking forward to how this agreement plays out in the next book as things didn’t necessarily work out as planned for the group in this book.
Overall I found this one interesting. It felt like a departure from everything else McGinnis has written (which I have loved) but that isn’t a bad thing. My best recommendation is to not go into this with any pre-conceived notions about what this book will be about. As with her other books, McGinnis does a wonderful job of creating the world and developing the characters, but that is where the comparisons end. While this wasn’t my favorite book by McGinnis, I still thought the story was solid and am looking forward to the next book to see what happens next for these characters.
This story has multiple POVs and I admit, at first the book felt really choppy as we were jumping from one POV to the next and the chapters were fairly short. The Witt chapters were the ones that made things feel off for me and I suppose it is because the other characters are with each other. With that said, once the story picked up for me, it didn’t seem as distracting.
The world that McGinnis has created is interesting. The Kingdom of Stille has always had a Given who dances into the sea and the belief is that she is what prevents a wave from destroying the kingdom like it did before. Khosa is the Given and was expected to be ready to go by now but before she can, she has to have an heir. The problem for her is that she can’t stand the touch of any other human and now things are at a point where she may not get a choice about what happens. Even though she struggles with human touch, there is one person she is drawn to.
Vince is the third in line for the throne and when Khosa shows up at the castle, he can’t help but be drawn to her even if she is destined to die. As time progresses, Vince does what he can to protect her but his father has made it very difficult for him. He is willing to give up everything to protect Khosa but when the plan goes awry, things change for both of them.
Donil and Dara grew up with Vince but they are considered outsiders by most of Stille. They are Indiri, a race connected to the earth, and they possess magic. While Donil aligns to life, Dara aligns to death and while these attributes help them, they also cause some problems. When Vince and Khosa learn more about them and their magic, things change for all of them.Vince (and his mother) has always considered Donil and Dara family and they are all pretty close but when Khosa arrives, things shift a bit for them.
Let’s talk about feelings for a moment. Dara has always felt something for Vince and now she sees that Khosa has drawn Vince’s attention. This has created some definite tension between Dara and Khosa and it eventually comes to a head. Remember when I said that Khosa is drawn to someone…well that happens to be Donil. There is something about Donil that allows Khosa to touch him without flinching or drawing back. So…now we have Dara loves Vince, Vince loves Khosa, and Khosa has feelings for Donil. We do get to see how things end up for this group by the end of the book but I am curious to see where McGinnis will take this in the next book.
Outside of these relationships, there is another vein to this story and that ties back to Witt’s chapters. He leads the Pietra and they are driven to get more land so that his people can survive. Because of this, a war is coming to Stille and they are in no way prepared to fight such a strong army. Add to that, the agreement Witt makes with Ank, the leader of the Feneen, and they really have no chance considering how much they lost the last time they faced the Feneen. I’m looking forward to how this agreement plays out in the next book as things didn’t necessarily work out as planned for the group in this book.
Overall I found this one interesting. It felt like a departure from everything else McGinnis has written (which I have loved) but that isn’t a bad thing. My best recommendation is to not go into this with any pre-conceived notions about what this book will be about. As with her other books, McGinnis does a wonderful job of creating the world and developing the characters, but that is where the comparisons end. While this wasn’t my favorite book by McGinnis, I still thought the story was solid and am looking forward to the next book to see what happens next for these characters.