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pegasuspages 's review for:
A Light in the Sky
by Shina Reynolds
A Light in the Sky is a story about Aluma, a 17-year-old who has dreamed of being part of the Empryean cavalry and riding her own winged horse. We follow Aluma through betrayals, successes, and going on a quest to save her world.
Once I saw the cover I knew I had to read this book as I've always been interested in winged horses and I loved the idea of a flying horse cavalry. This book has both regular and flying horses and I really liked the lore of how they both fit into the world, with flying horses being given wings later in life. I could tell that the author has experience with horses and was glad that I didn't have to read, "she squeezed with her knees" 500 times like I have in all other adventure books. I felt like the horses were grounded in reality, although as the book went on they became less grounded with the the horses understanding full sentences. That certainly would make riding easier! The rest of the world building is really nothing new and I found myself picturing areas from other fantasy books to picture the locations instead of actually feeling like I was anywhere new.
This book had a lot of YA tropes that I have seen in many other books. We have a "not like other girls" protagonist who is from a not special area with her hot friend from childhood but gets thrown into being special and meets another equally hot but much more mysterious new guy and love triangles/shenanigans ensue. I was especially reminded of Shadow and Bone, Divergent, and the Hunger Games. I know that books borrow from each other, especially YA fantasy books, but I really feel like the author could have played more with audience expectation as I felt like many of the main plot points were very predictable.
I thought that the writing in this book was very basic, even for a YA book. I could predict the end of many sentences because they were so cliched. I felt this the most with the villain writing, there were a lot of, "silly girl, you think you're so clever," "you must do more to defeat me," "you will never fulfill your destiny," etc. Some of the character premises were interesting, but the dialogue was so cliched that I had trouble thinking of them as actual characters and not one-dimensional fantasy archetypes. I really hope that any following books flesh these characters out more!
If you were excited as I was about flying horses, I'd give this book a read. If not, I wouldn't recommend it. Thank you to NetGalley and Wink Road Press for the advanced electronic copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
Once I saw the cover I knew I had to read this book as I've always been interested in winged horses and I loved the idea of a flying horse cavalry. This book has both regular and flying horses and I really liked the lore of how they both fit into the world, with flying horses being given wings later in life. I could tell that the author has experience with horses and was glad that I didn't have to read, "she squeezed with her knees" 500 times like I have in all other adventure books. I felt like the horses were grounded in reality, although as the book went on they became less grounded with the the horses understanding full sentences. That certainly would make riding easier! The rest of the world building is really nothing new and I found myself picturing areas from other fantasy books to picture the locations instead of actually feeling like I was anywhere new.
This book had a lot of YA tropes that I have seen in many other books. We have a "not like other girls" protagonist who is from a not special area with her hot friend from childhood but gets thrown into being special and meets another equally hot but much more mysterious new guy and love triangles/shenanigans ensue. I was especially reminded of Shadow and Bone, Divergent, and the Hunger Games. I know that books borrow from each other, especially YA fantasy books, but I really feel like the author could have played more with audience expectation as I felt like many of the main plot points were very predictable.
I thought that the writing in this book was very basic, even for a YA book. I could predict the end of many sentences because they were so cliched. I felt this the most with the villain writing, there were a lot of, "silly girl, you think you're so clever," "you must do more to defeat me," "you will never fulfill your destiny," etc. Some of the character premises were interesting, but the dialogue was so cliched that I had trouble thinking of them as actual characters and not one-dimensional fantasy archetypes. I really hope that any following books flesh these characters out more!
If you were excited as I was about flying horses, I'd give this book a read. If not, I wouldn't recommend it. Thank you to NetGalley and Wink Road Press for the advanced electronic copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!