Beth C.
Written on Jun 25, 2016
First - this is a LONG book. A door-stopper. Should you choose to read it, you might want to go for an e-book, if you read them.
As for the book itself, I almost stopped reading by page 11. At that point, it felt like the author couldn't decide on what to write, so he just threw in EVERYTHING. Dragons? Check. Orphan? Check. Creepy old crone? Double-check. Epic quest? Check, check, check. It was as if there was a yellow pad with a handwritten checklist nearby, and as each thing was thrown in, a box got marked off. But - I persevered. By page 31, we had yet another mysterious orphan (I didn't realize at the time that we would end up with 3 mysterious orphans), delivered in the dead of night. And the overly florid language was driving my crazy. What could be said in 5 words instead took 3 sentences. EVERYTHING has major descriptives. Again, I persevered. And finally, after way longer than it feels like it should have taken, I completed this epic. And...it was ok.
The characters are extremely thoroughly described. By the end of the book, any reader will be able to picture each major character (and many minor ones) in exquisite detail, and will know their motives (and motivations) back to front. There is no lack there - other than the fact that the majority of all the characters who may have something to do in book two when it arrives are male. Diversity is not this book's strong point.
The story? Well, it seemed to ebb and flow. The religious system in the story reminded me more of Christianity than anything else, and occasionally I wondered if there was a hidden motive in there for that. The language, as I mentioned, seemed sometimes overdone, to the point of shrinking the book if the editing had been a bit better. There are a lot of things that seem to be a bit convenient - mysterious voices can only compensate for so much, yet here they seem to be working overtime. However, by the time I got to the end, I started to feel more interested in what was going to happen - only to find out that NOTHING was. That's right - there is no real ending. It's all one big build-up for the next book. Very disappointing to put that much effort into reading, only to figure out that none of these characters I had followed for so long were able to get any closure on *anything*.
I doubt I would read the second book, but...maybe. If I did, I would either get it in e-book on sale, or borrow it from the library. Even after 535 pages, I'm not invested enough to make the monetary investment for another one.