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A review by acuppabooks18
The Beholden by Cassandra Rose Clarke
2.0
Arc received from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.
In The Beholden we follow two sisters and a reformed Pirate as they fulfill the tenets of a bargain they made with a River Goddess 5 years prior. They are tasked with finding the source of a sickness that is spreading through their land. A sickness that means people, animals, and plants are not dying. The world is out of balance and it is their task to restore it.
There were some interesting things in this novel. I thought that the world the author created was cool, there was an intriguing magic system and we were given a pantheon of gods that I had never truly seen before.
Honestly, though, this book ended up missing the mark for me. It had quite a bit of potential but there were quite a few missed opportunities as overall the story lacked tension and character growth for me. The magic system was never truly explained despite us being presented with a counter system and the lush jungle that was presented was underutilized.
We were given three potentially awesome characters between a powerful mage, a former pirate, and a noble woman who was traveling on this quest despite being pregnant. These three and how they approached the conflict, each other, and the obstacles thrown in their way could've been wonderful! Despite this and the events that they faced (when they happened) we barely saw any character growth through the novel except at the very end when it was necessary to the plot progression. It also was a little aggrevating to see the fact that one of the characters was pregnant and not experiencing pregnancy as she should've referenced every other paragraph. Its understandable on some level and I am not a parent but, women have been pregnant and giving birth in far worse circumstances for centuries. Outside of traveling and one attack, this character had it pretty good.
I can often forgive two dimensional characters if you give me an active plot with tension. This book mostly revolved around the three characters traveling somewhere, speaking with some folks and then moving onto the next desination. But, even when they traveled they were mostly just talking to each other or bemoaning their situation. When we did get an action scene it didn't feel important. Because, there didn't really seem to be any threat. Even one of the characters referencing people that would've been hunting them was never delivered upon. There was a missed opportunity in the sickness as well because it never truly affected their journey nor did it cause an obstacle. Really, there were hardly any obstacles that prevented the characters from doing anything. Most of them were easily overcome as well.
I think this had a lot of potential and I'd be interested to see what the author creates next but, this book was just not there for me.
In The Beholden we follow two sisters and a reformed Pirate as they fulfill the tenets of a bargain they made with a River Goddess 5 years prior. They are tasked with finding the source of a sickness that is spreading through their land. A sickness that means people, animals, and plants are not dying. The world is out of balance and it is their task to restore it.
There were some interesting things in this novel. I thought that the world the author created was cool, there was an intriguing magic system and we were given a pantheon of gods that I had never truly seen before.
Honestly, though, this book ended up missing the mark for me. It had quite a bit of potential but there were quite a few missed opportunities as overall the story lacked tension and character growth for me. The magic system was never truly explained despite us being presented with a counter system and the lush jungle that was presented was underutilized.
We were given three potentially awesome characters between a powerful mage, a former pirate, and a noble woman who was traveling on this quest despite being pregnant. These three and how they approached the conflict, each other, and the obstacles thrown in their way could've been wonderful! Despite this and the events that they faced (when they happened) we barely saw any character growth through the novel except at the very end when it was necessary to the plot progression. It also was a little aggrevating to see the fact that one of the characters was pregnant and not experiencing pregnancy as she should've referenced every other paragraph. Its understandable on some level and I am not a parent but, women have been pregnant and giving birth in far worse circumstances for centuries. Outside of traveling and one attack, this character had it pretty good.
I can often forgive two dimensional characters if you give me an active plot with tension. This book mostly revolved around the three characters traveling somewhere, speaking with some folks and then moving onto the next desination. But, even when they traveled they were mostly just talking to each other or bemoaning their situation. When we did get an action scene it didn't feel important. Because, there didn't really seem to be any threat. Even one of the characters referencing people that would've been hunting them was never delivered upon. There was a missed opportunity in the sickness as well because it never truly affected their journey nor did it cause an obstacle. Really, there were hardly any obstacles that prevented the characters from doing anything. Most of them were easily overcome as well.
I think this had a lot of potential and I'd be interested to see what the author creates next but, this book was just not there for me.