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A review by sarah_taleweaver
The King's scrolls by Jaye L. Knight
5.0
Oh stars. I should've read this book much sooner.
I confess: I wasn't as crazed about the first book, [b:Resistance|20561916|Resistance (Ilyon Chronicles, #1)|Jaye L. Knight|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1441121331s/20561916.jpg|39294633], as some people were. So, when I started The King's Scrolls, I was torn between the rave reviews it's received from so many friends and my own doubt about whether or not TKS could live up to those reviews. I'm happy to say that it very much did.
Also, as I mentioned while reading it: I now know why the Ilyon fandom is so weepy so much of the time*. But more on that shortly.
The Good:
-Dragons! From the moment these magnificent creatures arrived on-scene, I knew I liked TKS better than Resistance. I mean, dragons in general are absolutely awesome, and Jaye's are no exception. And Jace and Gem's relationship is sweet and adorable and awwwwwwwww. Also, Jaye has the same ideas about people-sleeping-under-their-dragon's-wings as I do, which makes me ridiculously happy.
-Marcus and Liam are basically some of my new favorite characters. (Pretty sure my top five list currently consists of Kaden, Jace, Marcus, Liam, and Meredith, not necessarily in that order.Please don't kill me for not having Kyrin as a favorite.) I loved the role they played and getting to know them and yeah. I just love them. Especially Marcus. (Why can't they be real?)
-Cretes show up instead of being just people who are mentioned but never actually show up. They're pretty awesome.Particularly because they brought the aforementioned dragons with them. I liked the relationship between Timothy, Aaron, and Josin; it was pretty awesome. (Also, I have a suspicion that Leetra is roughly inspired by Leetu Bends from the DragonKeeper Chronicles . . . anyone know if that's true or not?)
-Stuff gets serious. This isn't entirely good in the strictest sense of the word because it's mostly the reason for the weepy fangirls and heartbreak and all that in the fandom. But at the same time, I liked it in a way. The stakes are higher and suddenly our protagonists are definitely not guaranteed safety (which was a vibe I got in the later part of Resistance). There were places where I had to actively reassure myself that "Hey, it's going to be ok; he's going to be ok. There's fangirls trying to make ships for him on the Goodreads Resistance group; he has to survive this." And so while the death and the hurt and all that does produce heavy feels, it also makes TKS a better book.
The Bad:
-Characters sometimes got lost. There's a lot of characters in the Ilyon series, so this was a bit inevitable . . . but still, I would've liked to see more of some characters. Trev, for instance- he shows up at the beginning of the book, and I think he went on the mission, but I didn't really see him much? Which made me sad, because I really like him. And Talas kind of disappeared as well about halfway through the book, or I feel like he did anyway. And I would've also liked to see more of Daniel . . . but I'm pretty sure that I saw as much of him as I could, given the plot, so I'm not actually complaining about that.
-Kyrin is still not a character I can really connect with, I feel like. I mean, I like her (mostly). I sympathize with her. I feel sorry for her and want to give her a hug about half the time. And I do feel closer to her than I did during the course of Resistance. But there's still a disconnect there that I don't have with most of the other POV characters.
-Not exactly bad, but I thought there'd be more searching-for-the-Scrolls-and-the-crete-who-has-them, but that was basically wrapped up in the first quarter of the book and the rest was other (still more or less related) stuff. So. I'm not complaining, I'm just saying that this is a thing.
Overall, The King's Scrolls is an excellent book, one of the rare second books that are better than the first book in a series. It's exciting, inspiring, and has characters you'll fall in love with. (Seriously- if you don't fall in love with at least one, I'd be amazed.) I'd definitely recommend it to any lovers of Christian fantasy.
(*I am a rare non-weepy fangirl and didn't actually cry at all during this book. I just yelled a lot and whimpered occasionally and told myself it would be ok and made plans of exactly what I'd like to do to the General and Daican if I get the chance. But it still hurt!)
I confess: I wasn't as crazed about the first book, [b:Resistance|20561916|Resistance (Ilyon Chronicles, #1)|Jaye L. Knight|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1441121331s/20561916.jpg|39294633], as some people were. So, when I started The King's Scrolls, I was torn between the rave reviews it's received from so many friends and my own doubt about whether or not TKS could live up to those reviews. I'm happy to say that it very much did.
Also, as I mentioned while reading it: I now know why the Ilyon fandom is so weepy so much of the time*. But more on that shortly.
The Good:
-Dragons! From the moment these magnificent creatures arrived on-scene, I knew I liked TKS better than Resistance. I mean, dragons in general are absolutely awesome, and Jaye's are no exception. And Jace and Gem's relationship is sweet and adorable and awwwwwwwww. Also, Jaye has the same ideas about people-sleeping-under-their-dragon's-wings as I do, which makes me ridiculously happy.
-Marcus and Liam are basically some of my new favorite characters. (Pretty sure my top five list currently consists of Kaden, Jace, Marcus, Liam, and Meredith, not necessarily in that order.
-Cretes show up instead of being just people who are mentioned but never actually show up. They're pretty awesome.
-Stuff gets serious. This isn't entirely good in the strictest sense of the word because it's mostly the reason for the weepy fangirls and heartbreak and all that in the fandom. But at the same time, I liked it in a way. The stakes are higher and suddenly our protagonists are definitely not guaranteed safety (which was a vibe I got in the later part of Resistance). There were places where I had to actively reassure myself that "Hey, it's going to be ok; he's going to be ok. There's fangirls trying to make ships for him on the Goodreads Resistance group; he has to survive this." And so while the death and the hurt and all that does produce heavy feels, it also makes TKS a better book.
The Bad:
-Characters sometimes got lost. There's a lot of characters in the Ilyon series, so this was a bit inevitable . . . but still, I would've liked to see more of some characters. Trev, for instance- he shows up at the beginning of the book, and I think he went on the mission, but I didn't really see him much? Which made me sad, because I really like him. And Talas kind of disappeared as well about halfway through the book, or I feel like he did anyway. And I would've also liked to see more of Daniel . . . but I'm pretty sure that I saw as much of him as I could, given the plot, so I'm not actually complaining about that.
-Kyrin is still not a character I can really connect with, I feel like. I mean, I like her (mostly). I sympathize with her. I feel sorry for her and want to give her a hug about half the time. And I do feel closer to her than I did during the course of Resistance. But there's still a disconnect there that I don't have with most of the other POV characters.
-Not exactly bad, but I thought there'd be more searching-for-the-Scrolls-and-the-crete-who-has-them, but that was basically wrapped up in the first quarter of the book and the rest was other (still more or less related) stuff. So. I'm not complaining, I'm just saying that this is a thing.
Overall, The King's Scrolls is an excellent book, one of the rare second books that are better than the first book in a series. It's exciting, inspiring, and has characters you'll fall in love with. (Seriously- if you don't fall in love with at least one, I'd be amazed.) I'd definitely recommend it to any lovers of Christian fantasy.
(*I am a rare non-weepy fangirl and didn't actually cry at all during this book. I just yelled a lot and whimpered occasionally and told myself it would be ok and made plans of exactly what I'd like to do to the General and Daican if I get the chance. But it still hurt!)