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A review by its_madi
Given to the Sea by Mindy McGinnis
medium-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
1.0
You would think 2020 would cut me some slack and end the year with books that were good.
No.
No I don’t get that.
Given to the Sea is about Khosa, a girl whose destiny is to be given to the sea so her kingdom isn’t destroyed by a wave. Which sounds interesting enough, but it’s not.
Every character in this book was some kind of infuriating.
Khosa was personality devoid. “But wait” you cry. “Isn’t that the point of her character? At the beginning it shows that she’s not very emotional.” You’re kind of right and I would maybe let that slide if everyone else wasn’t as personality deprived. After so many emotionless characters, Khosa’s lack of emotion and personality looks less like a character choice, and more of an excuse for no characterization.
Then there was Dara and Donil, twins who are the last two people of their race. I found them both ok, just ok. They weren’t horrible but they were also seriously lacking in any personality.
I actually liked Dara a little bit, until about 200 pages in when Dara gets so upset that Vincent might like someone else that she storms off dramatically into the woods. And I’m not saying that she shouldn’t have been upset, but it would’ve been nice if, I don’t know, her character’s story didn’t suddenly shift to revolving around Vincent. Like, she had goals, but the book decided to take a 180 and completely forget them for this awful love dodecahedron. I'm so tired of characters, especially female characters, getting their story lines completely abandoned for a love interest
I have some other problems with the Vincent/Dara relationship, but we’ll get to that later.
I’m not even going to talk about the other narrator Witt because I have never, in all my life, read a more useless POV. It had little to nothing to do with the story.
But the main frustration I had was Vincent, who wins the award for most unlikable character I’ve read in a while. Most of my frustrations are spoiler related so you're just going to have to trust me here when I say he’s not a good character.
Where to begin.
First, is no one else talking about how Vincent and Dara are adopted siblings because I’ve gone through several reviews and no one seems to be talking about that? So if you don’t care about spoilers and haven’t read the book, Vincent’s mom took in Dara and Donil, because they were only children and the last of their race, after their race got massacred. So that immediately threw up some red flags. But I persisted, thinking that I misunderstood what it meant by Vincent’s mom taking in Dara and Donil. I thought that maybe Vincent’s mom didn’t raise the twins, but instead just took them to the castle and made them some other noble’s kids.
But then Vincent says this sentence, word for word about Donil.
“We grew up as brothers, and fights that began with small fists flying ended with arms slung about shoulders, black eyes forgiven as scrapes healed.”
As brothers
Umm… yeah. If you didn’t follow that, Vincent just described Dara’s brother, Donil, as his own brother.
But that’s not even the worse thing.
So it’s also explained that Donil has powers of life, which basically means he’s super attractive to the ladies. And Vincent gets all jealous. Skip a few pages and Khosa is assaulted by this scribe, and Donil rescues her. So Donil is comforting Khosa because it's obviously a very scary thing that just happened to her, when Vincent finally catches up to them and hears about what happened. Donil goes to do something and leaves Vincent with Khosa. And Vincent's first thought isn’t “oh maybe I should be there for my friend who was just in a horrifying situation”
Nah. his first thought is and I quote
“I know she will not take comfort with me as she did with Donil, and that thought sends another streak of anger through my body…”
What in tarnation?
Your friend just went through something horrible, and your first thought is “she likes Donil more.” You asshole. You absolute sack of shit. And he doesn’t even try to comfort her at all, he just kind of sits there?
If you can get past the characters, the plot was almost nonexistent and the stakes were low. Everything was either resolved so fast it didn’t matter, or the only few interesting plot points were quickly diminished by that rushed ending. I don’t think there was enough time spent in the ending. Why did Dara try to drown Khosa? Dara was mad at her but she’s not stupid. What did Vincent mean by “we are both given to the sea?” Are Khosa and Vincent related too? Who knows? Certainly not me. The only only good I can come up with is that the worldbuilding gets… a ribbon for effort?
Like they all had their customs, good and bad and I like how none of the countries were portrayed as “the undeniable good guys”. But even the worldbuilding had its flaws. I couldn’t really tell where this was taking place and where the different countries were in relation to each other.
Overall not a good book to end 2020 on. Or maybe it is, given the status of this year. 1/5.
No.
No I don’t get that.
Given to the Sea is about Khosa, a girl whose destiny is to be given to the sea so her kingdom isn’t destroyed by a wave. Which sounds interesting enough, but it’s not.
Every character in this book was some kind of infuriating.
Khosa was personality devoid. “But wait” you cry. “Isn’t that the point of her character? At the beginning it shows that she’s not very emotional.” You’re kind of right and I would maybe let that slide if everyone else wasn’t as personality deprived. After so many emotionless characters, Khosa’s lack of emotion and personality looks less like a character choice, and more of an excuse for no characterization.
Then there was Dara and Donil, twins who are the last two people of their race. I found them both ok, just ok. They weren’t horrible but they were also seriously lacking in any personality.
I have some other problems with the Vincent/Dara relationship, but we’ll get to that later.
I’m not even going to talk about the other narrator Witt because I have never, in all my life, read a more useless POV. It had little to nothing to do with the story.
But the main frustration I had was Vincent, who wins the award for most unlikable character I’ve read in a while. Most of my frustrations are spoiler related so you're just going to have to trust me here when I say he’s not a good character.
Where to begin.
First, is no one else talking about how Vincent and Dara are adopted siblings because I’ve gone through several reviews and no one seems to be talking about that? So if you don’t care about spoilers and haven’t read the book, Vincent’s mom took in Dara and Donil, because they were only children and the last of their race, after their race got massacred. So that immediately threw up some red flags. But I persisted, thinking that I misunderstood what it meant by Vincent’s mom taking in Dara and Donil. I thought that maybe Vincent’s mom didn’t raise the twins, but instead just took them to the castle and made them some other noble’s kids.
But then Vincent says this sentence, word for word about Donil.
“We grew up as brothers, and fights that began with small fists flying ended with arms slung about shoulders, black eyes forgiven as scrapes healed.”
As brothers
Umm… yeah. If you didn’t follow that, Vincent just described Dara’s brother, Donil, as his own brother.
But that’s not even the worse thing.
So it’s also explained that Donil has powers of life, which basically means he’s super attractive to the ladies. And Vincent gets all jealous. Skip a few pages and Khosa is assaulted by this scribe, and Donil rescues her. So Donil is comforting Khosa because it's obviously a very scary thing that just happened to her, when Vincent finally catches up to them and hears about what happened. Donil goes to do something and leaves Vincent with Khosa. And Vincent's first thought isn’t “oh maybe I should be there for my friend who was just in a horrifying situation”
Nah. his first thought is and I quote
“I know she will not take comfort with me as she did with Donil, and that thought sends another streak of anger through my body…”
What in tarnation?
Your friend just went through something horrible, and your first thought is “she likes Donil more.” You asshole. You absolute sack of shit. And he doesn’t even try to comfort her at all, he just kind of sits there?
If you can get past the characters, the plot was almost nonexistent and the stakes were low. Everything was either resolved so fast it didn’t matter, or
Like they all had their customs, good and bad and I like how none of the countries were portrayed as “the undeniable good guys”. But even the worldbuilding had its flaws. I couldn’t really tell where this was taking place and where the different countries were in relation to each other.
Overall not a good book to end 2020 on. Or maybe it is, given the status of this year. 1/5.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Rape