A review by xtinetreasure
The Ill-Made Mute by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

3.0

I picked up this book because I remember reading it sometime throughout my high school career and absolutely loving it, unfortunately this wasn't the case on the second go-round. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I remembered what some of the major plot twists were and that ruined it a little bit for me, because there are some GREAT twists and turns in this book but I think that may have been the main factor in my love for it the first time I read it. While the plot has good premise and, like I said, has some great twists and turns, what I noticed this time was the lengthy, over-the-top writing style. While there are some absolutely beautiful turns of phrases in this book, the majority of these are just too much. A lot of it could be said in a much more direct and shortened manner without the copious amounts of describing words used, and it would probably be a lot better off for it as only about one or two in every ten of the superfluous sentences actually hits the mark with creating the scene/setting/mood. The world-building throughout the story has some great potential (wind-ships and stormriders - what's not to love about that idea?), however, I felt this potential wasn't achieved anywhere near as much as it could have been, there were a lot of things that were only mentioned briefly or just kind of skipped over while almost too much time was spent on other factors. All in all a book with a lot of potential that wasn't fully achieved and after getting back into the story it was still enjoyable, although not a favourite of mine anymore, and I will still pick up the rest of the series and continue on to see what will happen.