My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Genre: YA Fantasy
Release Date: July 5th
Publisher: Clarion Books
Pages: 400
Publisher’s Synopsis:
“In this thrilling and epic YA fantasy debut the only hope for a city trapped in the eye of a cursed storm lies with the daughter of failed revolutionaries and a prince terrified of his throne.
Vesper Vale is the daughter of revolutionaries. Failed revolutionaries. When her mother was caught by the queen’s soldiers, they gave her a choice: death by the hangman’s axe, or death by the Storm that surrounds the city and curses anyone it touches. She chose the Storm. And when the queen’s soldiers—led by a paranoid prince—catch up to Vesper’s father after twelve years on the run, Vesper will do whatever it takes to save him from sharing that fate.
Even arm herself with her father’s book of dangerous experimental magic.
Even infiltrate the prince’s elite squad of soldier-sorcerers.
Even cheat her way into his cold heart.
But when Vesper learns that there’s more to the story of her mother’s death, she’ll have to make a choice if she wants to save her city: trust the devious prince with her family’s secrets, or follow her mother’s footsteps into the Storm.”
My Review:
For me this one was just ok. I really wanted to love this book and, objectively, it has all the things I love in a fantasy. But, sadly, I just struggled to connect with this one. I loved the premise, themes, and tropes so I felt like it was something I could really get into.
I did not have a terrible experience, but I also didn’t have the most engaging one either. I think it deserves a solid three stars, as I feel like there will be a bell curve of readers who fall equally on either sides of this rating.
The worldbuilding, society structure, and magic systems were all a little confusing to me for the first quarter of the book. I had a difficult time visualizing and conceptualizing the events that were taking place, which left me a little emotionally bereft when it came to the characters.
It also felt really predictable, textbook ya fantasy formula, and I think that also detracted from the enjoyment for me as well. Not much is fresh in this one. For example, I like the Hunger Games style class divides, but we’ve seen it before.
With this lack of connection, I failed to truly immerse into the motivations that should have swept me away into the story. Even the love interest was predictably generic, a royal who doesn’t fit in.
A lot of the characters felt surface level to me because of the stereotypes they molded to. I didn’t feel any depths of emotions.
It wasn’t that anything was truly bad in my experience of the story, it’s not even that I disliked anything in particular, but it just failed to captivate me in the way I would love from a story.
Although not the most enchanting read for me, it is still a decent debut.
Thank you to Netgalley and Clarion Books for giving me an early copy in exchange for my honest review!
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