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A review by booksandladders
Land of Shadows by Jeff Gunzel
3.0
Pretty generic fantasy novel. There was nothing special about the characters and the "plot twists" were clearly laid out for the reader in advance. The writing wasn't that great, lots of overstated sentences and unnecessary punctuation. In my opinion there was too much "telling" and not enough showing. A lot of this story could have been extended to fully flesh out both the plot and the characters.
Like I said, the characters were so generic and boring. There was nothing that really distinguished one from the other except for their names.
Jade: Seemed interesting at first but then became the typical "I am an assassin that is clearly here as a love interest"
Jacob: Typical playboy sidekick who is still a good fighter and like a "brother" to the main character
Eric: So boring. For being the lead and the "Gate Keeper" (whatever that is -- there are so many prophecies and everyone knows them but the reader doesn't have a clue what is going on), he is actually not that interesting. The most exciting he got was having a one night stand with the enemy tbh. And that was like Chapter 2.
Morcel: What a waste of a character. Considering he is the first character we meet and he is barely in the novel at all, there is no point in even including him. It did nothing to either (a) move the plot forward, or (b) add complexity to another character.
The tone was really shaky and it was difficult sometimes to determine which "point of view" we were seeing the story from as it quickly shifted -- without warning, I might add -- from one character to another in the middle of a scene.
The world-building was horrendous. Like I don't need to know about the economic breakdown of each and every town that the characters go through. Saying "this town does trade" is enough for me (and most people) to realize that they have a solid economy in this town. It is really unnecessary to have any more description than that.
Also the descriptions of literally everything made me want to claw my eyes out. I get that you want to be descriptive and paint a picture for the reader but too much detail is not a good thing, trust me. You know what is?? Giving enough of a picture that the reader can imagine the rest.
Overall: 2.5/5 stars but rounded up for the star counter. I probably will finish this series only because I can't leave things unfinished but I am not looking forward to it, if I am being honest. It is too generic of a story that is basically a lot of other fantasy plot lines mixed together to create a big heaping mess. Honestly I could complain for a while about this one, but just read my status updates. There are some spoilers in there ish but it was frustrating.
Like I said, the characters were so generic and boring. There was nothing that really distinguished one from the other except for their names.
Jade: Seemed interesting at first but then became the typical "I am an assassin that is clearly here as a love interest"
Jacob: Typical playboy sidekick who is still a good fighter and like a "brother" to the main character
Eric: So boring. For being the lead and the "Gate Keeper" (whatever that is -- there are so many prophecies and everyone knows them but the reader doesn't have a clue what is going on), he is actually not that interesting. The most exciting he got was having a one night stand with the enemy tbh. And that was like Chapter 2.
Morcel: What a waste of a character. Considering he is the first character we meet and he is barely in the novel at all, there is no point in even including him. It did nothing to either (a) move the plot forward, or (b) add complexity to another character.
The tone was really shaky and it was difficult sometimes to determine which "point of view" we were seeing the story from as it quickly shifted -- without warning, I might add -- from one character to another in the middle of a scene.
The world-building was horrendous. Like I don't need to know about the economic breakdown of each and every town that the characters go through. Saying "this town does trade" is enough for me (and most people) to realize that they have a solid economy in this town. It is really unnecessary to have any more description than that.
Also the descriptions of literally everything made me want to claw my eyes out. I get that you want to be descriptive and paint a picture for the reader but too much detail is not a good thing, trust me. You know what is?? Giving enough of a picture that the reader can imagine the rest.
Overall: 2.5/5 stars but rounded up for the star counter. I probably will finish this series only because I can't leave things unfinished but I am not looking forward to it, if I am being honest. It is too generic of a story that is basically a lot of other fantasy plot lines mixed together to create a big heaping mess. Honestly I could complain for a while about this one, but just read my status updates. There are some spoilers in there ish but it was frustrating.