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cupiscent 's review for:

Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff
3.0

My dissatisfactions with this may be yet another case of not-my-thing, I think. I'm never sure in cases like this. I mean, I want more complexity in the storyline, greater intricacy of character lines and interactions, but this is obviously and firstly a YA story, and is the simplicity a strength for that market? I just don't know. I really wanted more richness of detail and depth of world - especially more scattered throughout the prose, not clumped into the occasional page of "now I'm going to be descriptive" - but a) is that not suitable for the audience? and b) I've been so spoiled by my recent reading of Daniel Abraham and his succulent world-showing.

The story moved me to misty-eyed emotion at multiple points in the finale sequence. The heroine underwent excellent growth through personal challenge. The griffin is pretty darn great. And Lady Aisha rocks the casbah, except
Spoilerthen she just disappears? Er... what happened there? She was the best bit! She can't just quietly die off-camera!


A good, fun YA fantasy, in a non-European setting (yay) though I can't help feeling this is a Japanese-esque setting infected with Western concepts. Still, interesting, even if it never really gains the strength to shoulder out of its YA confines (for me).