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A review by vivianne
Given to the Sea by Mindy McGinnis
1.0
DNF (on page 63)!
Spoiler free review!
So this was my first Fairyloot book, April 2017. And unfortunately it wasn’t very successful.
Well I tried. Several times even. But I just have to give this up, it’s just not for me.
The concept was interesting but I don’t think that I would have bought this book on my own. I didn’t like the story of Kosha, the fact that she is solely born to have sex, birth a daughter and die had me really in conflict with my morels. And for everyone to just be okay with her faith? The fact that the sea had some kind of special power of drawing girls (and let them do this weird dance), needing sacrificing otherwise it would rebel had me a little hm.. not sure I will like this. And yeah I’m so sorry to say this but I hated it.
The beginning of this book was just awful. The characters needed way more introduction. I was quite confused who was what and lived where and was from what clan. The language used didn’t really draw me in and the concept was kind of mehh. But it was interesting of some sorts, some terms really got me fascinated about the world and that made me continue reading, at least till page 63…
Generally I’m a big fan of short chapters. But here it just didn’t work. There are four main characters, that get like 3-5 pages in turn and then another character is already swooped in and after that those had like a short introduction, another chapter of another character is already started. I didn’t have time to figure out their personality or to connect with them. And I really need that to understand and like a story. When I’m on 20% of a book I want to at least have an idea of what an character is like.
The way the chapters flow into each other was not smooth enough. I want it to be fluent, solid and logical, and that was not the case here. For example in the beginning this feast is thrown for the Given, that’s told from Khosa’s POV for like 4 pages. Then the sister of Vincent walks in and we switch to Vincent’s POV for like 5 pages, but before the scene picks up again there are first a few pages dedicated about what Vincent thinks of Khosa. So after this we finally pick up (only for one page) and Dara walks in and speaks but then we already switch to Dara’s POV and the scene is over. AHHHHH that’s so frustrating to read. All these different opinions and views make the story are so unclear and illogical. It’s just a mess… I didn’t get anything from that scene because there are so many unnecessary words and opinions. It’s not necessary to tell one scene from 3 POV’s.
But something that really put me off in this book was the writing style. I’ve never read such an awful sentence composition in a book. There are lines in here that I read 10 times and still don’t understand. It was like a try at old English with a sparkle of self-fabricated slang. And it just didn’t work. But also some sentences are super weird that I’m like who in their right mind would come up with this.. I will give you an example of this:
Like what?! WHAT THE HELL!? Is this just me or would no one ever do this in the whole damn world? That’s the most nasty thing ever. Is she just going to sit there like that the rest of the evening? And there were literally so much more things like this, that I had question marks with.
Another writing style thing; it was just not descriptive enough, and normally I really like that but when you introduce this whole fantasy world to me it needs some words about the surrounding. The world building was just not existing in the first 63 pages and a story like this REALLY needs that. I have no idea how Stille looks, no idea if it’s an Island or a coast place, it was a kingdom right? So why isn’t there spoken of different cities or even of cities? What kind of creatures do live there? How many people? Why are the pitrans enemies? Is there a lot of beach or forest? But I also had no idea how the main characters looked and that I hated most.
Plot wise it was even more a mess. It started to quick, like I noted before it needed more character introduction and more world building. The second chapter of Kosha (so page 15) hell already broke lose. Well I can say that but I actually had no idea what was happening?! It was just so strange and illogical and weird. Half the freaking time I had no clue what was going on and what someone’s motivation was.
So after several tries I just have to give up on Given to the Sea. Maybe I will give this book a second change in the future, so I will also put it on my ‘setting aside for now’ shelve for now.
“A good person does not necessarily make a good king.”
Spoiler free review!
So this was my first Fairyloot book, April 2017. And unfortunately it wasn’t very successful.
Well I tried. Several times even. But I just have to give this up, it’s just not for me.
The concept was interesting but I don’t think that I would have bought this book on my own. I didn’t like the story of Kosha, the fact that she is solely born to have sex, birth a daughter and die had me really in conflict with my morels. And for everyone to just be okay with her faith? The fact that the sea had some kind of special power of drawing girls (and let them do this weird dance), needing sacrificing otherwise it would rebel had me a little hm.. not sure I will like this. And yeah I’m so sorry to say this but I hated it.
The beginning of this book was just awful. The characters needed way more introduction. I was quite confused who was what and lived where and was from what clan. The language used didn’t really draw me in and the concept was kind of mehh. But it was interesting of some sorts, some terms really got me fascinated about the world and that made me continue reading, at least till page 63…
Generally I’m a big fan of short chapters. But here it just didn’t work. There are four main characters, that get like 3-5 pages in turn and then another character is already swooped in and after that those had like a short introduction, another chapter of another character is already started. I didn’t have time to figure out their personality or to connect with them. And I really need that to understand and like a story. When I’m on 20% of a book I want to at least have an idea of what an character is like.
The way the chapters flow into each other was not smooth enough. I want it to be fluent, solid and logical, and that was not the case here. For example in the beginning this feast is thrown for the Given, that’s told from Khosa’s POV for like 4 pages. Then the sister of Vincent walks in and we switch to Vincent’s POV for like 5 pages, but before the scene picks up again there are first a few pages dedicated about what Vincent thinks of Khosa. So after this we finally pick up (only for one page) and Dara walks in and speaks but then we already switch to Dara’s POV and the scene is over. AHHHHH that’s so frustrating to read. All these different opinions and views make the story are so unclear and illogical. It’s just a mess… I didn’t get anything from that scene because there are so many unnecessary words and opinions. It’s not necessary to tell one scene from 3 POV’s.
But something that really put me off in this book was the writing style. I’ve never read such an awful sentence composition in a book. There are lines in here that I read 10 times and still don’t understand. It was like a try at old English with a sparkle of self-fabricated slang. And it just didn’t work. But also some sentences are super weird that I’m like who in their right mind would come up with this.. I will give you an example of this:
“The smell hit me, and I gag. To my right, my father does the same, though he hides it better. A few of the court ladies swoon; one of them vomits into her lap and then tidily closes her knees so that the skirts pocket the mess.”
Like what?! WHAT THE HELL!? Is this just me or would no one ever do this in the whole damn world? That’s the most nasty thing ever. Is she just going to sit there like that the rest of the evening? And there were literally so much more things like this, that I had question marks with.
Another writing style thing; it was just not descriptive enough, and normally I really like that but when you introduce this whole fantasy world to me it needs some words about the surrounding. The world building was just not existing in the first 63 pages and a story like this REALLY needs that. I have no idea how Stille looks, no idea if it’s an Island or a coast place, it was a kingdom right? So why isn’t there spoken of different cities or even of cities? What kind of creatures do live there? How many people? Why are the pitrans enemies? Is there a lot of beach or forest? But I also had no idea how the main characters looked and that I hated most.
Plot wise it was even more a mess. It started to quick, like I noted before it needed more character introduction and more world building. The second chapter of Kosha (so page 15) hell already broke lose. Well I can say that but I actually had no idea what was happening?! It was just so strange and illogical and weird. Half the freaking time I had no clue what was going on and what someone’s motivation was.
So after several tries I just have to give up on Given to the Sea. Maybe I will give this book a second change in the future, so I will also put it on my ‘setting aside for now’ shelve for now.