The Fallen Swallow

by Justin C Davis

[bamxo]

First Impressions
The Fallen Swallow, I received an ARC of this novella and I have been waging an internal war in my head since I started it, on whether my completely blunt, honest opinion would be welcomed. I think perhaps maybe I'm not the intended audience for this particular book. Although I feel my opinion would be null for the youngest adult range, there are those of us who adore YA fantasy fiction. So my unbiased review is for them.

I found the idea of the book very intriguing, suspense and mysterious pasts aside, I do enjoy dark magic and the draw for me was that alone.

My Thoughts
I didn't like the story as a whole, but there is definitely promise in the writing that could hint to future better works, if the bloat can be eliminated.

This brings me to the first point, I have to mention the excessive use of descriptive content. I found it repetitive and hard to get into a good flow. I can see there is a decent story under the excess fluff writing. I do not however, have time to go through and cross out these page after page problems to make it readable for myself.

My next point is the FMC, I found her too young, I couldn't click with the vibes the book tried to sell. At 13 years old, I doubt I would have clicked then either. It just wasn't working for me.

This is why I unfortunately must delicately place this in my DNF pile. I will try to pursue it further at a later date, but for right now I must move on and try to get myself out of the reading slump this novella triggered.