Take a photo of a barcode or cover
mollyrook 's review for:
When the Moon Hatched
by Sarah A. Parker
adventurous
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
This was a very fun book, and it was exactly what I needed in a very challenging week. I thought the setting was really fantastic and I loved a lot about it, but I definitely had some editing/writing complaints. I think that Sarah Parker has a lot of potential, and I hope that, now that she has been picked up big a traditional publisher, she'll get the editing that her books need to really shine. I think this series has potential to be really excellent, but it needs a good editing team to push it the rest of the way.
The things I loved:
The setting. I think this whole world is so freaking cool, especially the dragon moons.
I really liked the climate-divided world, and I especially liked the detail that people on one half of the wall always got sunset and the other half always got night. And I loved that Raeve intentionally picked night so she could see the moons.
Loved the climate-based dragons. I really liked how distinct and creative they were physically—the Moltenmaws were closer to birds, for example, with their rainbow feathers. And I loved how the more polar dragons were truly not equipped for the other side of the world. I thought she went just brutal enough on that front, showing the blistering that the Moonplumes would suffer in the sun.
In terms of characters, I think I was most intrigued by the Other, and I'm excited to learn more in future books. I liked seeing Kaan's relationships with other people honestly as much as I liked seeing him with Raeve. I think seeing how someone acts around people they don't want to bang is really important to character development, so that was key for me. Raeve's motivations were clear and consistent, which I appreciated. For most of the story, she didn't have the tie to Dohmm that Kaan wanted her to have, so of course she wanted to get back south to continue her revenge.
For the things I did not love:
The writing didn't really work for me. I'm particularly distracted by things like the speech tags, and everyone rasping and growling their dialogue got really annoying for me really fast. In Kaan's first chapter (about four pages long), he rumbles something once and growls things twice—and this is all from his own perspective. I also found the cadence of the writing a bit jarring, and I found the swearing from all the characters a bit much.
In terms of how she named things, it annoyed me a bit that so many of the fantasy terms were our words but just spelled a little differently. Why bother spelling it "dae" instead of "day"? It adds nothing. The names of the Creators were all along this line—Rayne is the water Creator; Igni is the fire Creator; Bulder is earth. It felt at odds with how creative and different the world as a whole was; it's such a cool world, but the names are so unimaginative.
I really dislike the whole male/female thing as their nouns, even if they are fae, but I did get used to it. I found it super jarring at first, though, which hindered me getting into it. It wasn't totally clear early on that they were fae instead of human, and I think making that clearer would have helped.
In terms of the story, I thought it could have used more developmental editing; I think there were some slow sections that could have been trimmed a bit to keep the story a bit tighter in the middle. It's very long, and I think it probably could have told the same exact story in 500 pages instead of 700.
For their relationship, I would have liked to see Kaan falling for her, rather thanjust her falling for him. Of course he already loved Elluin, but as Raeve says to him near the end, she is not just Elluin returned to life. I would have loved it if he found her and then got really put off by how un-Elluin she was, requiring him to fall for Raeve as her own person rather than waiting for her to remember her old love for him.
And then, the last thing I can think of right now, I wish so badly that she had come up with another name besides The Great Flurrt. I really hated the Great Flurrt.
The things I loved:
The setting. I think this whole world is so freaking cool, especially the dragon moons.
I really liked the climate-divided world, and I especially liked the detail that people on one half of the wall always got sunset and the other half always got night. And I loved that Raeve intentionally picked night so she could see the moons.
Loved the climate-based dragons. I really liked how distinct and creative they were physically—the Moltenmaws were closer to birds, for example, with their rainbow feathers. And I loved how the more polar dragons were truly not equipped for the other side of the world. I thought she went just brutal enough on that front, showing the blistering that the Moonplumes would suffer in the sun.
In terms of characters, I think I was most intrigued by the Other, and I'm excited to learn more in future books. I liked seeing Kaan's relationships with other people honestly as much as I liked seeing him with Raeve. I think seeing how someone acts around people they don't want to bang is really important to character development, so that was key for me. Raeve's motivations were clear and consistent, which I appreciated. For most of the story, she didn't have the tie to Dohmm that Kaan wanted her to have, so of course she wanted to get back south to continue her revenge.
For the things I did not love:
The writing didn't really work for me. I'm particularly distracted by things like the speech tags, and everyone rasping and growling their dialogue got really annoying for me really fast. In Kaan's first chapter (about four pages long), he rumbles something once and growls things twice—and this is all from his own perspective. I also found the cadence of the writing a bit jarring, and I found the swearing from all the characters a bit much.
In terms of how she named things, it annoyed me a bit that so many of the fantasy terms were our words but just spelled a little differently. Why bother spelling it "dae" instead of "day"? It adds nothing. The names of the Creators were all along this line—Rayne is the water Creator; Igni is the fire Creator; Bulder is earth. It felt at odds with how creative and different the world as a whole was; it's such a cool world, but the names are so unimaginative.
I really dislike the whole male/female thing as their nouns, even if they are fae, but I did get used to it. I found it super jarring at first, though, which hindered me getting into it. It wasn't totally clear early on that they were fae instead of human, and I think making that clearer would have helped.
In terms of the story, I thought it could have used more developmental editing; I think there were some slow sections that could have been trimmed a bit to keep the story a bit tighter in the middle. It's very long, and I think it probably could have told the same exact story in 500 pages instead of 700.
For their relationship, I would have liked to see Kaan falling for her, rather than
And then, the last thing I can think of right now, I wish so badly that she had come up with another name besides The Great Flurrt. I really hated the Great Flurrt.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Blood
Moderate: Sexual assault
Minor: Trafficking