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A review by bookoutlaw
Cloaked in Shadow by Ben Alderson
4.0
“Bending a book’s page should be banned. I am in the right mind to ask father to pass it as law. I prefer to treat a book like a lover, always handling it with gentle, tender hands.”
I would like to say, that even though I don't know Ben personally, I am proud of you for writing a debut as brilliant as this. It's really wonderful, when you can write a debut book, which is not only fantastic in it's story and characters but with the way the story flows. It never made me want to put it down and do other things. I wanted to keep reading more and more, and luckily it was such a quick read. Since I do struggle with reading lately.
I tend to go into books not even knowing what's happening, besides the stuff that I really know about them. I didn't know what this book was about except Zac not being able to really shapeshift and having some other powers. I like going blind in the book. I was drawn in the story from the very first chapters because I wanted to know where they were going and why so many elves were taken.
Anyhow, I am such a trash for Hadrian. He is such a lovable character like seriously you can't even hate on the poor boy. Precious Prince. And his scenes with Zac actually made me happy and smile so much, the worst part is usually when you are at work and you want to smile because the book makes you happy, but, at the same time, it could come of really weird if you start smiling out of sudden. People might start to think you crazy. Some of their conversations made me laugh out loud and I was actually reading while I was working so imagine the horrors of my supervisor finding out how I spent my last 6 hours of my shift.
There were 3 things I didn't like though. First, that there was no map. Me needs some good fantasy book maps but I can so forgive that. Second, when Zac was calling his parents Mam and Fa, for some reason it kinda annoyed me but again it's for the story and not really anything major. Third, the use of word 'many moons ago'. But again you sometimes use words like that in fantasy books to make them more fantasy-ish, I suppose. There are like small things so nothing that made me love the story less.
Loved the characters, except some certain ones like Petrer boy. What the fuck was the end boy? You do some shit stuff and then suddenly want someone to be yours or claim them as yours? No cool, at all.
Reading this book gave me some The Shannara Chronicles vibe, which is funny since I haven't read the books only watched the show but it made me happy so there's that. And another last thing I would like to mention is that Ben really managed to give me that feeling of wanting to go and write my book, as I was reading Cloaked in Shadow and even though I have read loads of books by my all time favourite authors, there has been only one author, who manages to do that with every of her books and that is my Queen Sarah J Maas. So I would like to say that you seriously did an amazing job with your debut and be proud.
I would like to say, that even though I don't know Ben personally, I am proud of you for writing a debut as brilliant as this. It's really wonderful, when you can write a debut book, which is not only fantastic in it's story and characters but with the way the story flows. It never made me want to put it down and do other things. I wanted to keep reading more and more, and luckily it was such a quick read. Since I do struggle with reading lately.
I tend to go into books not even knowing what's happening, besides the stuff that I really know about them. I didn't know what this book was about except Zac not being able to really shapeshift and having some other powers. I like going blind in the book. I was drawn in the story from the very first chapters because I wanted to know where they were going and why so many elves were taken.
Anyhow, I am such a trash for Hadrian. He is such a lovable character like seriously you can't even hate on the poor boy. Precious Prince. And his scenes with Zac actually made me happy and smile so much, the worst part is usually when you are at work and you want to smile because the book makes you happy, but, at the same time, it could come of really weird if you start smiling out of sudden. People might start to think you crazy. Some of their conversations made me laugh out loud and I was actually reading while I was working so imagine the horrors of my supervisor finding out how I spent my last 6 hours of my shift.
There were 3 things I didn't like though. First, that there was no map. Me needs some good fantasy book maps but I can so forgive that. Second, when Zac was calling his parents Mam and Fa, for some reason it kinda annoyed me but again it's for the story and not really anything major. Third, the use of word 'many moons ago'. But again you sometimes use words like that in fantasy books to make them more fantasy-ish, I suppose. There are like small things so nothing that made me love the story less.
Loved the characters, except some certain ones like Petrer boy. What the fuck was the end boy? You do some shit stuff and then suddenly want someone to be yours or claim them as yours? No cool, at all.
Reading this book gave me some The Shannara Chronicles vibe, which is funny since I haven't read the books only watched the show but it made me happy so there's that. And another last thing I would like to mention is that Ben really managed to give me that feeling of wanting to go and write my book, as I was reading Cloaked in Shadow and even though I have read loads of books by my all time favourite authors, there has been only one author, who manages to do that with every of her books and that is my Queen Sarah J Maas. So I would like to say that you seriously did an amazing job with your debut and be proud.