Warrior Beautiful (Riders of Paradesos, #1)

by Wendy Knight

[Angie]

I decided to read Warrior Beautiful based solely on the cover. Seriously. Look at it! It promises mighty, flying unicorns! I was expecting it to be High Fantasy though, since I never read the description. It's just our world but with hidden unicorns. There's some strange pandemic making its way across the continent. People are just falling over and becoming totally comatose. No one knows what's happening, except for Scout's little sister, Lil Bit. She can see the evil soul stealers which are doing just that, stealing souls. She can also see the unicorns who fight them. But then Lil Bit's soul is taken, along with almost everyone in their small Montana town. Now it's up to Scout and her exboyfriend, Trey, to save the world!

I wanted to love this one so much, but Warrior Beautiful didn't fully work for me for one main reason: everything felt dumbed down. I did really like the story, and found it all incredibly unique and fun, but I immediately noticed that the writing was very stiff, straightforward, and at times felt juvenile. Everything was simplified or just not explained for whatever reason. One thing early on was that Scout and Trey are partnered up for a science project. Random science words like materials, hypothesis, and chemical reaction are thrown around but we have no clue what the project it. It could be anything, but it's definitely science of some kind since they're doing test runs and collecting data.

The world building was also described in this simplistic way, but it was made worse by the fact that Scout and Trey are told that it's being simplified for them. When they get to the beautiful unicorn world in the sky, and Iros (the only human there) is explaining everything to them, he says certain things have long, complicated names but then just uses terms like "soul stealer" and "magical unicorn fire." On top of that, the different types of unicorns are all named using anagrams of what they do. Leerhas are healers. Irwarrios are warriors. Ekse are seekers/trackers. I had to roll my eyes at this.

There is a romance in Warrior Beautiful, but it's certainly not instalove and there is no love triangle! Scout and Trey have been broken up for about a year, after a tragic car accident left her with constant back pains and he never once visited in the hospital because he felt guilty. Scout is harboring a lot of pain from his abandonment and is finding it impossible to forgive him even though she knows he still loves her. He does have the worst girlfriend in the world, and it's obvious to everyone except her that Trey isn't even into her. Of course, being thrown into an epic battle between unicorns and skeletal demons heightens emotions and brings our love birds back together.

Warrior Beautiful ends on a cliffhanger! Just when things are getting really dangerous and actiony, it ends! Just like that, it's over. What?! Despite my issues with the writing, I was really enjoying this one! The unicorns, at least the warrior ones, are super badass! The others are pretty much jerks, since they hold a grudge against humanity, but they're still pretty awesome, too. I can't wait for the second book!

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.