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A review by allisoncfong
Rising Sun by Donna Grant
2.0
First, I’d like to thank you to NetGalley and DL Grant,LLC for the ARC.
Rising Sun has a compelling story that had me interested in what was to come. Set in a fantasy world where humans and elves coexist within a realm, the story follows a female human and male elf. The third person POVs jumped back and forth between the two characters.
Yasmin is captured by the DIA, a seemingly governmental faction similar to real-world CIA. She is forced to help the elf, Ravi, to complete his mission, as she is the only living being who has ever escaped the compound where he must retrieve a bomb. The DIA became aware of the bomb that would put them at war with the neighboring Dragon faction. Yasmin and Ravi must work together to neutralize the problem, but first need to travel by foot to the location. Yasmin has a severe distrust of elves from her past. It is revealed throughout their journey to the compound how Yasmin was abused by her former elf family and captors. In the beginning, Ravi doesn't trust her because he likes to work alone and has been betrayed in the past. I am unsure why Ravi dislikes humans so much other than an overlying arc of elf-to-human racism that is present for the entirety of the text. Through circumstances that brought them together during their journey, they do actually come together in the end.
While the storyline is interesting and kept me wanting to know more, I had a difficult time with the writing style. The sentence structure was very choppy and leaned on telling rather than showing. There was a lot of "and then, and then, and then" feelings when I was reading. I felt like I was being taken through their motions, but not actually gaining any insight. I could not tell you what Yasmin looks like aside from blue eyes and dark hair. At one point, it is said that she is attractive, but I didn't see any other evidence to show this. Based on each character's past, I found it difficult to believe that these two characters would actually fall for one another. I believe the whole timeframe spans about two weeks. It was difficult to follow the timeline as scenes jump around and then slow down to more detail. ...detail that didn't really tell or show me anything.
Unfortunately, I really struggled to finish this book even though I was interested in this story.
Rising Sun has a compelling story that had me interested in what was to come. Set in a fantasy world where humans and elves coexist within a realm, the story follows a female human and male elf. The third person POVs jumped back and forth between the two characters.
Yasmin is captured by the DIA, a seemingly governmental faction similar to real-world CIA. She is forced to help the elf, Ravi, to complete his mission, as she is the only living being who has ever escaped the compound where he must retrieve a bomb. The DIA became aware of the bomb that would put them at war with the neighboring Dragon faction. Yasmin and Ravi must work together to neutralize the problem, but first need to travel by foot to the location. Yasmin has a severe distrust of elves from her past. It is revealed throughout their journey to the compound how Yasmin was abused by her former elf family and captors. In the beginning, Ravi doesn't trust her because he likes to work alone and has been betrayed in the past. I am unsure why Ravi dislikes humans so much other than an overlying arc of elf-to-human racism that is present for the entirety of the text. Through circumstances that brought them together during their journey, they do actually come together in the end.
While the storyline is interesting and kept me wanting to know more, I had a difficult time with the writing style. The sentence structure was very choppy and leaned on telling rather than showing. There was a lot of "and then, and then, and then" feelings when I was reading. I felt like I was being taken through their motions, but not actually gaining any insight. I could not tell you what Yasmin looks like aside from blue eyes and dark hair. At one point, it is said that she is attractive, but I didn't see any other evidence to show this. Based on each character's past, I found it difficult to believe that these two characters would actually fall for one another. I believe the whole timeframe spans about two weeks. It was difficult to follow the timeline as scenes jump around and then slow down to more detail. ...detail that didn't really tell or show me anything.
Unfortunately, I really struggled to finish this book even though I was interested in this story.