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A review by halefa
A Bastard's Birthright by JE Payne
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
A high fantasy book about a soldier and a mage apprentice and the adventures they have to go through to fight evil.
It is pretty easy reading, with a semi-slow pace in the beginning that picked up towards the end.
I enjoyed the world building with lore, different cultures and different climates.
There is a magic system that was being touched upon without really going very deep - it mainly just follows usual tropes of different schools of magic and a magic ressource with the creative name "Talent".
What icked me the most was the descriptions of the characters and their personality traits and motivations. There was barely any ambiguity or nuance - the good people were good and the evil people were evil and you weten't in doubt who was what. Also, the characters' backstories and how they impacted the characters were pretty straightforward and mentioned often.
Dialogues seemed stiff and forced at times, again with very little left in-between the lines. They included some proverbs and references that were unexpected in a fantasy plot ("mea culpa", Oedipus complex, "Do you have time to discuss our lord and saviour"). Otherwise a lot of banter and an attempt at humour which only worked half of the time in my eyes, and sometimes was rather cringe and awkward.
The relationships among the characters were also a bit off putting. Military or educational ranks and hierarchy seemed completely irrelevant and were constantly challenged without consequences or just didn't exist.
The biggest confusion in terms of personality was absolutely Jasmine, who got a very specific description of her personality traits in the beginning and then basically did not follow up on it at all.
(Was it just me who noticed that all men have very fantasy-appropiate names and as good as all women have plain, modern day names like Jasmine and Elizabeth?)
Positively, there were multiple strong female characters, even though it had to be mentioned many times how sexy they were.
PS: Javelins? Really??
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ARC provided through Netgalley.
It is pretty easy reading, with a semi-slow pace in the beginning that picked up towards the end.
I enjoyed the world building with lore, different cultures and different climates.
There is a magic system that was being touched upon without really going very deep - it mainly just follows usual tropes of different schools of magic and a magic ressource with the creative name "Talent".
What icked me the most was the descriptions of the characters and their personality traits and motivations. There was barely any ambiguity or nuance - the good people were good and the evil people were evil and you weten't in doubt who was what. Also, the characters' backstories and how they impacted the characters were pretty straightforward and mentioned often.
Dialogues seemed stiff and forced at times, again with very little left in-between the lines. They included some proverbs and references that were unexpected in a fantasy plot ("mea culpa", Oedipus complex, "Do you have time to discuss our lord and saviour"). Otherwise a lot of banter and an attempt at humour which only worked half of the time in my eyes, and sometimes was rather cringe and awkward.
The relationships among the characters were also a bit off putting. Military or educational ranks and hierarchy seemed completely irrelevant and were constantly challenged without consequences or just didn't exist.
The biggest confusion in terms of personality was absolutely Jasmine, who got a very specific description of her personality traits in the beginning and then basically did not follow up on it at all.
(Was it just me who noticed that all men have very fantasy-appropiate names and as good as all women have plain, modern day names like Jasmine and Elizabeth?)
Positively, there were multiple strong female characters, even though it had to be mentioned many times how sexy they were.
PS: Javelins? Really??
--------
ARC provided through Netgalley.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
Moderate: Emotional abuse, Torture, Toxic relationship, and Death of parent
Minor: Slavery