torie 's review for:

The Sorrow King by Andersen Prunty

4.0

---

I was first drawn to this book through Goodreads and was pulled in by its awesome title and cover. When I read the synopsis, I was hooked. I went to Amazon and found that Prunty had set his titles to 99 cents until the end of June and it just sealed the deal.

I started reading the book and have to admit, I was mightily discouraged. The protagonist, Steven, just starts off so unendearing and the weird, forced, unrealistic conversations that transpired between he and his father made me cringe. I kept thinking to myself, "No one talks like that. Why? Why? Whyyyy?" And there's a scene in the very beginning with his teacher's outburst that was just so ludicrous and just...bad, that I asked again, "Whyyyy?" Some scenes were just awkward and thrown in to progress the plot and I was wondering when it was going to start getting good. At that time, it was entirely possible to put my kindle down and resume whatever work I was doing without feeling the need to open it again (Sorry, Prunty).



But then it got good. "The Jackthief" story was just so beautifully written and wonderfully told, that I had to read aloud the entire chapter to my boyfriend. The scenes proceeding the initial 40% of the book were well-executed, well-described and well, well done. The fingernail thing was just genius. When I read through it, I put my kindle down and said, "Man, that Prunty!"

However, the ending seemed a little...I don't know, anticlimactic? I loved all the scenes leading up to it and the suicide scenes in the book were genius, but the ending seemed like a page ripped out of Harry Potter (You know which scene I mean, Prunty! And if you don't, message me because it seriously...resembled it...though I'm not accusing you of stealing, but possible getting inspired from it?). I don't know. The ending was disappointing, otherwise I loved the book and would gladly read another book by Prunty.