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A review by donsmilo
The Last of the Renshai by Mickey Zucker Reichert
Did not finish book.
Not my cup of tea.
I got 18% into this book and then stopped. I fully understand that some people love this book and that this book and series might have gotten better after I stopped.
This wasn't the book for me.
(1) This book didn't get me emotionally connected to the main character. This is the main reason I put it down. Usually when you start a book there is something interesting that keeps you wanting to read. Usually that is the main character or the world. In this case, the book is not going for the world, because they don't tell us things about the way works and the true politics of the country are kept secret for a long time and are bland once introduced. The characters don't do it either though since the main character comes off as shallow and irrelevant. He is a boy (although with annoying time skips he is suddenly a man) who is the last of his warrior clan and is good at fighting and wants to live and get revenge. There is nothing endearing about him and we cannot connect to his values since he is written to have different values from us.
(2) this book keeps the readers in the dark about a lot if things so that we end up having little connection to the world. The world is not important to any of the characters, and the lack of care rubs off on the audience. Also things happen with no clear reason why that is the way they had to happen, so everything feels contrived. Bad events come out of the blue, eliciting a "what the heck?!" vibe and good things all are deus ex machina because they come out of the blue and are not really worked for. Convenient cliff crumbling into the sea, convenient dude with food, convenient old guy, the list goes on.
I got 18% into this book and then stopped. I fully understand that some people love this book and that this book and series might have gotten better after I stopped.
This wasn't the book for me.
(1) This book didn't get me emotionally connected to the main character. This is the main reason I put it down. Usually when you start a book there is something interesting that keeps you wanting to read. Usually that is the main character or the world. In this case, the book is not going for the world, because they don't tell us things about the way works and the true politics of the country are kept secret for a long time and are bland once introduced. The characters don't do it either though since the main character comes off as shallow and irrelevant. He is a boy (although with annoying time skips he is suddenly a man) who is the last of his warrior clan and is good at fighting and wants to live and get revenge. There is nothing endearing about him and we cannot connect to his values since he is written to have different values from us.
(2) this book keeps the readers in the dark about a lot if things so that we end up having little connection to the world. The world is not important to any of the characters, and the lack of care rubs off on the audience. Also things happen with no clear reason why that is the way they had to happen, so everything feels contrived. Bad events come out of the blue, eliciting a "what the heck?!" vibe and good things all are deus ex machina because they come out of the blue and are not really worked for. Convenient cliff crumbling into the sea, convenient dude with food, convenient old guy, the list goes on.