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A review by alanna131
The Waking Land by Callie Bates
3.0
There were good and bad things about this book, so it's a really solid 3 for me.
Bad things: I really could NOT connect with the narrator/protagonist. She talked about how she had such strong feelings about everything, but flipped on a dime to keep the story moving. If the story hadn't moved so quickly, it could have helped. *spoiler* As in, if she had spent longer traveling with her companions to slowly come around to the cause, rather than flipping as soon as she arrived at her destination, that could have helped. *end spoiler* There were a lot of examples of something that was introduced, annoyingly agonized over for a few pages, and then immediately solved. If she had fewer problems to solve in one book, it could have let the problems breathe a little. *spoiler* For example, the whole "land shifts" thing was introduced in the last quarter of the book, then it was discovered that, of course, it was used by the enemy, but, of course, that enemy isn't going to use it any more. If those had been present throughout the beginning, and it was slowly discovered that other people were using them when they weren't supposed to, I would have felt more emotion about them. *end spoiler*
Second, I also didn't like the time period it was set in. I felt like it would have been way cooler set in a sort of medieval time period instead of a late 1700s/early 1800s type place. I kept forgetting it was set there, until she mentioned a musket or a particular piece of dialogue that sounded like it was trying to imitate Pride and Prejudice. The dialogue could be jarring at times because the narrator didn't think in that kind of language, but she spoke that way. It was quite disjointed.
Good things: I did actually like this book, despite my rant! I liked the other characters around her and I think it was saved by the cool premise. The land magic was cool, although it could have been explored way, way more. *spoiler* She should have been sent to the mountain lords immediately and spent the whole book there learning about her magic. She really only spent like a few days there before leaving. And of course they skipped the council meeting of the mountain lords entirely. I would have loved to read about that! *spoiler end*
Shoot, I regressed into venting again. I was trying to say that I actually did like this book! Just didn't love it.
Bad things: I really could NOT connect with the narrator/protagonist. She talked about how she had such strong feelings about everything, but flipped on a dime to keep the story moving. If the story hadn't moved so quickly, it could have helped. *spoiler* As in, if she had spent longer traveling with her companions to slowly come around to the cause, rather than flipping as soon as she arrived at her destination, that could have helped. *end spoiler* There were a lot of examples of something that was introduced, annoyingly agonized over for a few pages, and then immediately solved. If she had fewer problems to solve in one book, it could have let the problems breathe a little. *spoiler* For example, the whole "land shifts" thing was introduced in the last quarter of the book, then it was discovered that, of course, it was used by the enemy, but, of course, that enemy isn't going to use it any more. If those had been present throughout the beginning, and it was slowly discovered that other people were using them when they weren't supposed to, I would have felt more emotion about them. *end spoiler*
Second, I also didn't like the time period it was set in. I felt like it would have been way cooler set in a sort of medieval time period instead of a late 1700s/early 1800s type place. I kept forgetting it was set there, until she mentioned a musket or a particular piece of dialogue that sounded like it was trying to imitate Pride and Prejudice. The dialogue could be jarring at times because the narrator didn't think in that kind of language, but she spoke that way. It was quite disjointed.
Good things: I did actually like this book, despite my rant! I liked the other characters around her and I think it was saved by the cool premise. The land magic was cool, although it could have been explored way, way more. *spoiler* She should have been sent to the mountain lords immediately and spent the whole book there learning about her magic. She really only spent like a few days there before leaving. And of course they skipped the council meeting of the mountain lords entirely. I would have loved to read about that! *spoiler end*
Shoot, I regressed into venting again. I was trying to say that I actually did like this book! Just didn't love it.