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bkendig 's review for:
Green Rider
by Kristen Britain
I read to the point where the main character completes the task which had been her only goal since a few pages in ... and then I realized I was only about halfway through the book and that I had no desire to continue with it.
This is the author's first novel, and it reads like one. It's a fine story of a young woman who is given a dangerous responsibility and does her best to see it through, but she doesn't grow during her journey - she begins and ends it as a resourceful and resilient lass who makes it through each encounter by sheer grit and the help of a few allies. And each encounter is self-contained; too early in her quest she meets goodnatured magical friends who dote on her and give her rest and then they leave the narrative, she runs into a villain who's made out to be her nemesis but then he disappears from the narrative also, she meets a friendly lumberjack but then he also departs, and so on and so forth. Too many potentially interesting characters who aren't able to develop more than one dimension. And for a story which is centered on finding a way to get to where the king is, the details of where she is and what lies between her and the end of her route are too vague (we don't ever see her have to make a choice between different roads with different challenges).
Maybe the next half of the book is the reward for having gotten through the first half, but I'm good.
This is the author's first novel, and it reads like one. It's a fine story of a young woman who is given a dangerous responsibility and does her best to see it through, but she doesn't grow during her journey - she begins and ends it as a resourceful and resilient lass who makes it through each encounter by sheer grit and the help of a few allies. And each encounter is self-contained; too early in her quest she meets goodnatured magical friends who dote on her and give her rest and then they leave the narrative, she runs into a villain who's made out to be her nemesis but then he disappears from the narrative also, she meets a friendly lumberjack but then he also departs, and so on and so forth. Too many potentially interesting characters who aren't able to develop more than one dimension. And for a story which is centered on finding a way to get to where the king is, the details of where she is and what lies between her and the end of her route are too vague (we don't ever see her have to make a choice between different roads with different challenges).
Maybe the next half of the book is the reward for having gotten through the first half, but I'm good.