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A review by theknightswhosaybook
The Sons of Thestian by M.E. Vaughan
2.0
Alright, alright. I grumbled my way through this. I complained constantly. My updates have been grumpy at best and rude at worst. But I’ll give credit where it’s due: at the end of the book, the author COMMITTED.
But the plot was unfocused and I hardly cared about any of the characters. Help?
No, seriously, help. This review is going to be a mess, because in my eyes the book is a mess. The plot just drifts along awkwardly. Sure, there are fight scenes and secrets and drama and stuff. But honestly, the book feels like the whole thing was contrived purely to get the ending into place, without regard for how the book as a whole worked as a journey.
See, Jionat wants to leave Harmatia because he believes he'll die if he stays. So he attempts to leave until he is successful. Rufus follows him. They have now achieved their goal of not being in Harmatia. So now they will... help this woman they just met achieve her quest to rescue a young princess, I guess, because they're not doing anything else? And once that has happened, they will go to this nice little village and relax? And if people come to either hurt them or take them back to Harmatia they will fight back? To defend their goal of not being in Harmatia? Meanwhile ominous things happen back in Harmatia, where they aren't?
It meanders. It feels random. The ending it sets up is one of the best parts of the book, but it isn't worth how unfocused the plot feels. The few arcs that feel more fleshed out — like Rufus and Jionat reconciling and becoming friends, or Jionat struggling with glimpsing the future — are just not inlayed into a plot that deserves them. And then there are all these random side plots that feel like they were completely dropped, like Rufus's awkward romance bit with Luca or a random guy who was killed while the main characters aren't in Harmatia. Certain plots I don't count as "forgotten" because I can only assume they will be picked back up in the sequel this entire book is calibrated to, but the lack of closure on so many things makes the book that much more unsatisfying.
Also, the characters. Oh boy. It's not that I dislike them, it's that 90% of the time I just don't care about them. Unless they're going through something particularly dramatic at the moment, they all come across as aggressively bland. I don't even know what the problem is. They just don't work. Fae is a badass faerie knight that I should love and I barely know if she has a personality. Also, was I supposed to care about her and Jionat and the doomed nature of human/faerie romance? Because I couldn't have cared less.
The writing style was probably not helping the character situation. I definitely didn't click with the general vibe of the story. I think it tended to be too heavy-handed and stilted. There were more than a few moments of objectively bad writing, too many misspellings/misuses of words, and an obsessive use of the description of characters' lips parting. Just parting, constantly, presumably to show emotion but coming across in the cringiest, most unnecessary way.
In conclusion: a few gems hidden in what is otherwise pure, bland frustration.
But the plot was unfocused and I hardly cared about any of the characters. Help?
No, seriously, help. This review is going to be a mess, because in my eyes the book is a mess. The plot just drifts along awkwardly. Sure, there are fight scenes and secrets and drama and stuff. But honestly, the book feels like the whole thing was contrived purely to get the ending into place, without regard for how the book as a whole worked as a journey.
See, Jionat wants to leave Harmatia because he believes he'll die if he stays. So he attempts to leave until he is successful. Rufus follows him. They have now achieved their goal of not being in Harmatia. So now they will... help this woman they just met achieve her quest to rescue a young princess, I guess, because they're not doing anything else? And once that has happened, they will go to this nice little village and relax? And if people come to either hurt them or take them back to Harmatia they will fight back? To defend their goal of not being in Harmatia? Meanwhile ominous things happen back in Harmatia, where they aren't?
It meanders. It feels random. The ending it sets up is one of the best parts of the book, but it isn't worth how unfocused the plot feels. The few arcs that feel more fleshed out — like Rufus and Jionat reconciling and becoming friends, or Jionat struggling with glimpsing the future — are just not inlayed into a plot that deserves them. And then there are all these random side plots that feel like they were completely dropped, like Rufus's awkward romance bit with Luca or a random guy who was killed while the main characters aren't in Harmatia. Certain plots I don't count as "forgotten" because I can only assume they will be picked back up in the sequel this entire book is calibrated to, but the lack of closure on so many things makes the book that much more unsatisfying.
Also, the characters. Oh boy. It's not that I dislike them, it's that 90% of the time I just don't care about them. Unless they're going through something particularly dramatic at the moment, they all come across as aggressively bland. I don't even know what the problem is. They just don't work. Fae is a badass faerie knight that I should love and I barely know if she has a personality. Also, was I supposed to care about her and Jionat and the doomed nature of human/faerie romance? Because I couldn't have cared less.
The writing style was probably not helping the character situation. I definitely didn't click with the general vibe of the story. I think it tended to be too heavy-handed and stilted. There were more than a few moments of objectively bad writing, too many misspellings/misuses of words, and an obsessive use of the description of characters' lips parting. Just parting, constantly, presumably to show emotion but coming across in the cringiest, most unnecessary way.
In conclusion: a few gems hidden in what is otherwise pure, bland frustration.