Bry's Bountiful Book Blog

I liked it.

This book has its flaws, of course. The plot was quite predictable, although that's relatively typical for coming-of-age epic fantasies. The plot was also fairly fast-moving, but that became troublesome in a few areas of the narrative. I can appreciate the desire to skip over needless training montages, but it felt like not much time had passed when suddenly Arlen becomes an invincible super-hero (which everyone knew was going to happen, but still). And then there's the matter of Leesha's gang-rape...I won't say it felt gratuitous (because Brett wisely didn't describe it), but it did feel sort of...added on. Just tacked on at the end, there, just before the manuscript got shipped off to the publisher. She recovers remarkably fast from the trauma, although perhaps Brett is going somewhere with it in successive novels.

All griping aside, it was an entertaining read, and I'm interested in checking out the next one. The world has an interesting premise, but I'd really like to see the world-building expanded on dramatically. This is fantasy, after all.