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A review by sierrataq
The Novice by Taran Matharu
2.0
I made it to page 119 and I don't know if I'm going to be able to continue without cringing. I was so hopeful for this book because of its excellent reviews, but it's really falling short.
The main problem I'm having with this book is the very juvenile style of writing. There are so many scenes that aren't well written and are quite underdeveloped. Certain phrases sound awkward and I just can't get past it to enjoy the story. If I were still in 8th grade I would have enjoyed this book a lot, but I'm in college now and have higher expectations from YA novels like this. It's not that the YA genre as a whole is too juvenile, because I have enjoyed many other YA novels recently but this one unfortunately just doesn't make the cut. This next one may be a little nit-picky, but I feel like the word choice in this book is also quite mundane and bland. It's often hard to get visual images of places, people, and situations because there isn't enough development.
As for the plot of the story, it seems like mashup of other stories from more famous authors. I'm seeing a lot of settings, characters, and situations that are a bit too reminiscent of more well-known stories. The way that the dwarven-elven-human racial divide thing is portrayed in this story is not the most original thing I've ever read. It reminds me too much of Tolkien's way of depicting them with some tweaks. I was hoping for some more originality in that area to set this book apart from similar novels, but I didn't really see any.
I'm basically sensing vibes of Hogwarts meets Tolkien meets How to Train Your Dragon from this book. While the idea seems cool in theory and could potentially work, because these three realms are already so amazing on their own, it would take some seriously jaw-dropping writing skills and theme and character development to pull off a mashup of the three. It just feels poorly done to me.
I mean no disrespect to the author and I hope this doesn't sound too harsh, because I really wanted to like this book. It's just too underdeveloped for me to consider it a worthy read. Sorry, not this time!
The main problem I'm having with this book is the very juvenile style of writing. There are so many scenes that aren't well written and are quite underdeveloped. Certain phrases sound awkward and I just can't get past it to enjoy the story. If I were still in 8th grade I would have enjoyed this book a lot, but I'm in college now and have higher expectations from YA novels like this. It's not that the YA genre as a whole is too juvenile, because I have enjoyed many other YA novels recently but this one unfortunately just doesn't make the cut. This next one may be a little nit-picky, but I feel like the word choice in this book is also quite mundane and bland. It's often hard to get visual images of places, people, and situations because there isn't enough development.
As for the plot of the story, it seems like mashup of other stories from more famous authors. I'm seeing a lot of settings, characters, and situations that are a bit too reminiscent of more well-known stories. The way that the dwarven-elven-human racial divide thing is portrayed in this story is not the most original thing I've ever read. It reminds me too much of Tolkien's way of depicting them with some tweaks. I was hoping for some more originality in that area to set this book apart from similar novels, but I didn't really see any.
I'm basically sensing vibes of Hogwarts meets Tolkien meets How to Train Your Dragon from this book. While the idea seems cool in theory and could potentially work, because these three realms are already so amazing on their own, it would take some seriously jaw-dropping writing skills and theme and character development to pull off a mashup of the three. It just feels poorly done to me.
I mean no disrespect to the author and I hope this doesn't sound too harsh, because I really wanted to like this book. It's just too underdeveloped for me to consider it a worthy read. Sorry, not this time!