The Island (Madion War Trilogy, #1)

by S. Usher Evans

[Chelsea]

I had fairly high expectations going into this book. Not the highest of expectations but they were pretty far up there. This tends to lead to disappointment but it this case it turned out very well. I hadn't read anything previously written by this author or even any books similar to this so I wasn't sure what to think when starting this book.

I would 100% be BFF's which Theo. I thought she was a great character! My favourite part about her was that she always, always, always fought for what she thought was right. She could never just sit by while something horrible was happening. I also think she's going to be a great character in the later books. She just has so much potential right now and a great sense of right and wrong.

I fell in love with Galian easily during this book. He's just an easy character to like. It was nice seeing that a prince, who you would think to have a great life, actually have a really hard time growing up. It pushes the fact that it doesn't matter who you are, everyone grows up differently and experiences life in different ways. I loved that the characters sympathized with each other's situations and didn't compare as to who's was worse.

My only complaint with the writing style was that some parts could be a little rushed. It wasn't bad though because the plot kept me interested the whole way through and I wasn't concerned about small technical details. There's some books where you can put down and pick up no problem and this was one of those books. The only thing was that I didn't want to put it down, I wanted to know what was going to happen next. I think the only reason this book got 4 instead of 5 stars was because it didn't have that one special thing to really push me over that edge. I thought the plot was great and the characters were well done but I wish there was just a little bit more to this book. If I gave out half rating then this would get the 4.5 stars.

If you've read the summary of this book and thought "oh that's interesting" then you're probably right because this was an interesting book. It was fun while being serious at the same time which I think is hard to do. I'm extremely glad I picked this book up and I can't wait to get my hands on the next one. I highly recommend this book to more mature young adults (and older!) that love fantasy with some romance mixed in. This was a great start to a hopefully incredible series.