This book was published on May 22, 2018. I got my hands on an advance reader copy, which is uncorrected proof. The version I read of this story may be different from the published version.
I also tacked on the 'Unreadable' label to this blog post...which means I didn't finish reading this book. I made it roughly 300 pages out of the 491 pages in the advance reader copy version before I gave up.
An amazon summary before I delve into the madness, "The stunningly original, must-read fantasy of 2018 follows two fiercely independent young women, centuries apart, who hold the power to save their world...or doom it.
When assassins ambush her best friend, Rielle Dardenne risks everything to save him, exposing herself as one of a pair of prophesied queens: a queen of light, and a queen of blood. To prove she is the Sun Queen, Rielle must endure seven elemental magic trials. If she fails, she will be executed...unless the trials kill her first.
One thousand years later, the legend of Queen Rielle is a fairy tale to Eliana Ferracora. A bounty hunter for the Undying Empire, Eliana believes herself untouchable―until her mother vanishes. To find her, Eliana joins a rebel captain and discovers that the evil at the empire's heart is more terrible than she ever imagined.
As Rielle and Eliana fight in a cosmic war that spans millennia, their stories intersect, and the shocking connections between them ultimately determine the fate of their world―and of each other." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE
At the very beginning of the book, there's a 14 page section that happens two years after chapter 1. Chapter 1 is told from Rielle's perspective. Chapter 2 is told from Eliana's perspective 1,020 years in the future. So you have two timelines to keep track of. For the sake of my brain, we're going to call those first 14 pages Year 2. Rielle's perspective is Year 0. Eliana's perspective is Year 1,020.
So in Year 2, we learn that Rielle has crazy powers, has just birthed a child, is at odds with an angel, can tap into something called the empirium, someone named Simon is half human half angel (which is apparently RARE and a no no; they were exterminated I guess?) and whisks the child away somewhere with a teleportation ability.
...then chapter 1 begins in Year 0. Already we're off to a great start.
Year 0 centers around Rielle who has hidden her powers for years. Apparently a lot of people are able to control one of the seven elements (which are slowly revealed throughout the book, not all at once) but usually people have to have some sort of medium to summon their power. They also only have one. Rielle can control all seven elements and doesn't need any mediums. She accidentally killed her mother when she was young and lost control. Her powers are also revealed in a horse race where she saves the prince (who she loves - did I mention she was raised with the prince, and the prince's betrothed?). Then she embarks on the seven trials to prove she actually can control her power and will serve the king. Lots of "strong spirited" but bull headed antics go along with her taunting other important people in power. OH YEAH. There's also this prophecy about two queens and the sun queen is supposed to help the people/empire but the blood queen is supposed to be their downfall? So Rielle is desperately trying to prove she's the sun queen and not the blood queen. No one else has ever been known to possess control over all seven elements so she's like a crazy rarity. Like a super shiny pokemon or something.
Year 1,020 centers around Eliana who is the Dread. She murders people or brings rebels in to be murdered in order to protect her brother and mother. BUT FIRST. This is supposed to happen 1,020 years AFTER Rielle's story. There have been NO NOTABLE TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENTS. EXCUSE ME, BUT WHAT?!?!?! >_> Things that bother me... anyways. So there are no more power people (elemental wielders, whatever you want to call them) but Eliana is also super rare (not a surprise!). Her body is like crazy strong and heals itself almost instantly. Think like Wolverine minus the adamantium skeleton/claws. She and her best friend run around the city and basically serve the kingdom by ferreting out rebels. Her best friend is the one with morals, but Eliana has been taught from a young age how to fight and also how to deal with all the guilt/emotions that comes with murder....by her mother (SPOILERS IN WHITE TEXT: This is not explained from when I stopped reading).
...so I read until page 300ish...and I stopped reading. What the characters were going through no longer held my interest, and it was very hard to care about either of them. There were also some like "ooo, wiggly fingers, timeline mysteries" starting to be revealed, but my eyes hurt from how intensely I kept rolling my eyes at every reveal. Like "bread crumbs" were left, but they were the size of boulders instead of tiny little crumbs. I just really lost interest. I think this could have been a great story, but it stopped holding my attention over halfway through the book. At that point, I should be like in it to win it....but no. There were so many wishy-washy motivations, so many weird 'character growth' moments that really just felt like diversions from the main plot, and I just... I couldn't keep up or track of what was going on. I was also getting so frustrated by what was revealed in those first 14 pages and it still hadn't come into play yet by the time I left off. It shouldn't take 300 pages to circle back to something that happened in the first 14. GAH.
Maybe the published version is better. I hope so. It really felt like it could have gone somewhere...it just didn't.
Happy reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment