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A review by mav_ka
The Shadow of What Was Lost by James Islington
adventurous
dark
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
3.5
I've been trying to (unsuccessfully) gather my thoughts about this for a bit less than a week now, so I'm just going to sit down and write and see what happens.
The book's plot is incredible, and I heard it gets even better. The plot is very intricate, with lots of small details. If you see something that looks like a plot hole or feels weird to you in the book -- that's not a plot hole, that's actually indeed weird and you should keep an eye on it. Not to mention that I spoiled myself for one huge thing in the future books just by googling characters (so, yeah, don't do what I did) BUT THAT SPOILER MAKES ME RECONSIDER THE EPILOGUE OF THE FIRST BOOK and let me tell you, my mind is just blown.
The great thing about the plot was that the author does not try to trick the reader; nope, the author makes it easy for the reader to guess some of the secrets before they are explained in the book. That made me put on my detective hat and pay attention, which is always a great thing. I love that in books, where I get to guess the secrets before they are revealed and feel all smart about it.
A few bad things about the plot that stood out to me are:
1) It starts off very slowly. While I still enjoyed the slow pace of the beginning and middle, the end is where the plot really picked up and got super interesting (and, once again, I heard it gets even better in future books👀). So you need to be in a mood for slow pacing. Buckle up, you are going on a journey.
2) Some revelations are not as logical as they may seem to the characters. The end is especially guilty of that. While it was the most interesting part, it was also the most scrambled one. I did not get what the characters realized in horror before they actually explained it, and even then, sometimes their leaps of logic felt a bit like a stretch.
The personalities of the characters feel 2D. I personally love reading about relationships between characters in books, and in this specific book, they just weren't there. Someone in a different review mentioned how the "romance was uninspired". But forget about romance, even the regular relationships felt uninspired! I did not get why people were friends or enemies with each other. None of what they said or did to each other felt genuine. Even a touching reunion between friends did not feel super genuine; it was more like they were going through the motions and doing things friends are supposed to do with no emotions behind it.
Some main characters had their personalities flipped in the middle of the book, which is fine, honestly, it was a bit of an improvement. But yeah, the character work was pretty mid.
For some, the compelling plot would be enough to keep them going despite this glaring flaw. While I'm firmly in the same camp (I collect interesting plots like stamps because I need inspiration for my own TTRPG games), the lack of believable characterization took a toll. I might need to switch to some character-driven books for the time being to recover before I continue with the series x)
The writing is bland and straightforward. And I wish I meant straightforward in a good way, but no.
Now, to be fair, this is the first book for this author, so he still did a decent job for a first book. But yeah, the writing was nothing special for an epic fantasy book. It did especially take a toll on my favourite part of any book -- the banter between characters. There were some attempts to include some jokes and bring some personality into the dialogue, but it always fell flat for me. This is one of the few books where I did not highlight even a single quote; none of them impressed me enough.
So, overall, what did I think? I enjoyed the plot. I enjoyed putting on a detective hat and hunting for clues. I started actually taking notes of names and places to cross-reference them later. I enjoyed the unexpected time travel aspect and I'm looking forward to seeing more of it, so far it has been done very well (as far as I can tell).
I did not enjoy the writing style. I thought the character work could use some work (ha). But I could see some of these things improving towards the end, so you know what, I'll give this book the benefit of the doubt. I'll probably continue with this series to see how it goes.
Solid 3.5/5 stars.
The book's plot is incredible, and I heard it gets even better. The plot is very intricate, with lots of small details. If you see something that looks like a plot hole or feels weird to you in the book -- that's not a plot hole, that's actually indeed weird and you should keep an eye on it. Not to mention that I spoiled myself for one huge thing in the future books just by googling characters (so, yeah, don't do what I did) BUT THAT SPOILER MAKES ME RECONSIDER THE EPILOGUE OF THE FIRST BOOK and let me tell you, my mind is just blown.
The great thing about the plot was that the author does not try to trick the reader; nope, the author makes it easy for the reader to guess some of the secrets before they are explained in the book. That made me put on my detective hat and pay attention, which is always a great thing. I love that in books, where I get to guess the secrets before they are revealed and feel all smart about it.
A few bad things about the plot that stood out to me are:
1) It starts off very slowly. While I still enjoyed the slow pace of the beginning and middle, the end is where the plot really picked up and got super interesting (and, once again, I heard it gets even better in future books👀). So you need to be in a mood for slow pacing. Buckle up, you are going on a journey.
2) Some revelations are not as logical as they may seem to the characters. The end is especially guilty of that. While it was the most interesting part, it was also the most scrambled one. I did not get what the characters realized in horror before they actually explained it, and even then, sometimes their leaps of logic felt a bit like a stretch.
The personalities of the characters feel 2D. I personally love reading about relationships between characters in books, and in this specific book, they just weren't there. Someone in a different review mentioned how the "romance was uninspired". But forget about romance, even the regular relationships felt uninspired! I did not get why people were friends or enemies with each other. None of what they said or did to each other felt genuine. Even a touching reunion between friends did not feel super genuine; it was more like they were going through the motions and doing things friends are supposed to do with no emotions behind it.
Some main characters had their personalities flipped in the middle of the book, which is fine, honestly, it was a bit of an improvement. But yeah, the character work was pretty mid.
For some, the compelling plot would be enough to keep them going despite this glaring flaw. While I'm firmly in the same camp (I collect interesting plots like stamps because I need inspiration for my own TTRPG games), the lack of believable characterization took a toll. I might need to switch to some character-driven books for the time being to recover before I continue with the series x)
The writing is bland and straightforward. And I wish I meant straightforward in a good way, but no.
Now, to be fair, this is the first book for this author, so he still did a decent job for a first book. But yeah, the writing was nothing special for an epic fantasy book. It did especially take a toll on my favourite part of any book -- the banter between characters. There were some attempts to include some jokes and bring some personality into the dialogue, but it always fell flat for me. This is one of the few books where I did not highlight even a single quote; none of them impressed me enough.
So, overall, what did I think? I enjoyed the plot. I enjoyed putting on a detective hat and hunting for clues. I started actually taking notes of names and places to cross-reference them later. I enjoyed the unexpected time travel aspect and I'm looking forward to seeing more of it, so far it has been done very well (as far as I can tell).
I did not enjoy the writing style. I thought the character work could use some work (ha). But I could see some of these things improving towards the end, so you know what, I'll give this book the benefit of the doubt. I'll probably continue with this series to see how it goes.
Solid 3.5/5 stars.