Take a photo of a barcode or cover
bethandhertea 's review for:
Blazewrath Games
by Amparo Ortiz
Honestly this book left me feeling a little bummed. I feel like the first couple chapters set up a great world, but that got bogged down with too many people and not enough character development. I will admit, I was honestly, strongly, hoping for our main character to have a bond with a dragon but that didn’t happen. I guess I just wanted a different story? Sorry, book.
I really loved the world building, how there is casual magic everywhere - the concept of the magical wand shop was great! Learning how the world works and how it’s mainly our world but slightly dipped in magic was delightful. The narrator for the audio book did a great job at navigating a whole variety of accents.
Samira was my favourite character, I hope she is featured in the second book. Lana was pretty great, but she often felt like Generic Heroine In A YA Book at times.
Lana’s parents annoy the crap out of me. We have one father, who has chosen his career over his family, and one mother who would rather be completely absent from her child once she sees that her daughter wants something other than the path she wants for her. Actually, her mother is the worst, and while I’m glad she turned up at the end, I feel like she got off too easy. I hope the second book has some conversations dealing with it.
This is a YA book, and it had one super annoying YA trope that I don’t like – where the obvious mean girl says that “ooooo everyone hates you” and rather than actually talk to anyone, our heroine buys into it. It’s not even a major plot point but I was so irritated by it.
The books biggest issue, to me, is that it got bogged down in far too many characters, resulting in very little character development for anyone, and a lot of info that could have been cut out so that the main story could have expanded. The Sire was a great bad guy conceptually, but between him, Randall, Takeshi, the President, Manny, Jaoquin and Lana’s parents – there were so many adults with so many different shifty agendas things got confusing real fast. That’s not even taking into account all the various other kids – Lana’s team, Lana’s family and friends, and all the other teams too.
Final note: Fuck You, Todd.
I really loved the world building, how there is casual magic everywhere - the concept of the magical wand shop was great! Learning how the world works and how it’s mainly our world but slightly dipped in magic was delightful. The narrator for the audio book did a great job at navigating a whole variety of accents.
Samira was my favourite character, I hope she is featured in the second book. Lana was pretty great, but she often felt like Generic Heroine In A YA Book at times.
Lana’s parents annoy the crap out of me. We have one father, who has chosen his career over his family, and one mother who would rather be completely absent from her child once she sees that her daughter wants something other than the path she wants for her. Actually, her mother is the worst, and while I’m glad she turned up at the end, I feel like she got off too easy. I hope the second book has some conversations dealing with it.
This is a YA book, and it had one super annoying YA trope that I don’t like – where the obvious mean girl says that “ooooo everyone hates you” and rather than actually talk to anyone, our heroine buys into it. It’s not even a major plot point but I was so irritated by it.
The books biggest issue, to me, is that it got bogged down in far too many characters, resulting in very little character development for anyone, and a lot of info that could have been cut out so that the main story could have expanded. The Sire was a great bad guy conceptually, but between him, Randall, Takeshi, the President, Manny, Jaoquin and Lana’s parents – there were so many adults with so many different shifty agendas things got confusing real fast. That’s not even taking into account all the various other kids – Lana’s team, Lana’s family and friends, and all the other teams too.
Final note: Fuck You, Todd.