Personal Rating: 3 Stars Goodreads Rating: 4.06 Content Rating: PG-13 In a stand-alone series set in the world of Muirwood, eighteen-year-old Maia is the exiled princess of Comoros and heir to the throne. As a result of her father’s ceaseless need for authority, she was left disinherited and forced to live as a servant in her enemy’s home. When the king invites chaos into the land by expelling the magical order known as the Dochte Mandar, Maia finds herself on a perilous quest to save her people. To survive, she must use magic she has learned in secret—despite the fact that women are forbidden to control it. Hunted by enemies at every turn, Maia realizes that danger lurks within her, too. Her powers threaten to steal not only her consciousness but also her sense of right and wrong. Can she set herself free and save the realm she loves—even if that realm has forgotten her? (goodreads.com) My good friend (*waves* hi friend!) gave me her copy of this book and recommended it to me. She gave me another one by this author as well and when I get around to reading it I’ll probably review that one too. It’s risky business reviewing books that were given to you as gifts. After all, what if you don’t like it? You don’t want to hurt your friend by giving a bad review to a book they gave you but you don’t want to lie either. Luckily, I enjoyed this book so I don’t have to worry about it! This book is a spin off or possibly sequel series to the Legends of Muirwood series, which made things a teensy bit confusing because I’m guessing there was a ton of world building in the first series and probably a more detailed explanation of how the magic system works. There wasn’t so much of that in The Banished of Muirwood, but I was able to figure it out for myself fairly well as I read along and it didn’t need huge expositional paragraphs. I love it when the author doesn’t try to force feed the reader their fantasy world. As much fun as it is as an author to just gush for pages about every detail about the world that you’ve made, it is generally better for the reader when they can figure things out for themselves. Which was the case with this book. Of course, a few details are still a little sketchy to me, but for the most part I understand what’s happening. The plot was engaging and kept me thinking about it even when I wasn’t reading the book. If I’m thinking about the book that I’m reading while at work (surrounded by movies and other books) then it probably has a great plot (at least, that’s been my experience). Just as it took me a while to understand the magic system of this book, I got somewhat confused from time to time with the plot. Though I could usually figure out what was happening, I think I would have liked it better if the MC, Maia, didn’t black out at important plot points all the time. Having read the whole book I know why that happened (I can’t tell you because of spoilers), but I still think the gaps during her black outs could have been explained better. Instead we got to see her dreams of her past, which were fine, but I would have prefered to get more information about what was going on while she was unconscious. Let’s talk about characters. First off, we have Maia, the princess of a place called Comoros. I will admit that Maia was kind of… unexceptional. There was nothing that made me particularly interested in her. I didn’t dislike her, but there wasn’t anything that made me relate to her. Maybe that changes in the next books in the series, but in this one she was pretty much just another unfortunate, special, magic wielding, young lady in the middle of turmoil. Then there was the kishon (who never got a name in this book, but I suspect will be more important later on), a super duper awesome fighter guy who kicks patooty and protects Maia. He was an interesting character to me because we know so little about him. He’s secretive and quiet, but it just feels like he has a really rich back story. Guess I’ll have to find out! Jon Tayt was another character I liked. He’s a hunter with a sweet dog. He also talks too much, eats too much, loves to meet new people, and loves his dog so much that he named a village after it. Personally, I relate to that. Did I expect to see myself most in the middle aged hunter in this book? No. I usually assume I will relate most to the girl who’s close to my age, but I’m being completely sincere when I say I am Jon Tayt. He is me and I is him. I should probably also mention Collier. What a dude. He’s not a particularly nuanced or original character when you’ve read as much YA fantasy as I have, but he’s fun. I will say that I am surprised by his age. He acts like he’s in his early twenties, or at least older than Maia (who is eighteen), but we find out that he’s two years younger than her. And that kind of just gets breezed over as if he isn’t sixteen. No offense to any sixteen year olds is meant here, but Collier does not act like a sixteen year old. He even talks about when he was fourteen as if that was such a young age. It just kind of baffled me because I’m imagining this big ole buff dude and he probably can’t even grow a beard yet (although, I do know some sixteen year olds with impressive beards). He just seems young is all I’m saying. I don’t have much else to say about The Banished of Muirwood. I did have a few other little issues with it, but those are more nitpicky things and if I point them out then it might impede your enjoyment of the book if you decide to read it. Other than that, I can only say that I am excited to read the next one! Thanks again to my dear friend for giving me this book! I really enjoyed reading it and I hope anyone else who might pick it up had fun with it too! I’d best be off before I get banished too! Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25169886-the-banished-of-muirwood
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Personal Rating: 3.5 Stars Goodreads Rating: 4.26 Content Rating: PG-13 Nikolai Lantsov has always had a gift for the impossible. No one knows what he endured in his country’s bloody civil war—and he intends to keep it that way. Now, as enemies gather at his weakened borders, the young king must find a way to refill Ravka’s coffers, forge new alliances, and stop a rising threat to the once-great Grisha Army. Yet with every day a dark magic within him grows stronger, threatening to destroy all he has built. With the help of a young monk and a legendary Grisha Squaller, Nikolai will journey to the places in Ravka where the deepest magic survives to vanquish the terrible legacy inside him. He will risk everything to save his country and himself. But some secrets aren’t meant to stay buried—and some wounds aren’t meant to heal. (goodreads.com) This book is part of a series of series of books by Leigh Bardugo (sort of like how the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a series of series of movies, lots of stories going on all in the same universe). The “Nikolai Duology” will be the third series in the “Grishaverse”, the first being the “Grisha Trilogy” (which starts with Shadow and Bone) and the second being the “Six of Crows Duology, rumored to soon be a trilogy” (which starts with Six of Crows). I felt like I needed to explain all of that stuff, so hopefully I made it make sense. Just go with me. As you may recall from my review for Shadow and Bone, I really enjoyed the first series in the Grishaverse. Like… really enjoyed it. Last year I finally got around to reading the spin off series, Six of Crows, and I loved that and it’s sequel as well! I’ve heard many people say that they love Six of Crows but don’t particularly like Shadow and Bone, but I think I liked the latter better, though it is close. I can understand why people like SoC better, especially from a reviewer’s stand point. SaB is full of YA fiction tropes and it doesn’t seem that unique, whereas SoC is totally different (and pretty much Ocean's 11 with teenagers) and the characters are ridiculously well developed. But I had more fun reading SaB so there. ANYWAYS. I just finished reading King of Scars and I’m here to talk about that and not the rest of the Grishaverse. That being said, I am glad that I reread the previous series before reading this book because there’s so much stuff that I would have missed if I hadn’t refreshed my memory. So, if you want to read this book I very highly recommend reading the others first or it may not make much sense. Like, any sense. At all. When I first started reading this book I was hyped because it was more Grishaverse stuff and since I love the other books in the series I assumed I would love this one as well. Then I got to reading it and, maybe it was because I was invested in another story line (I was watching a TV show that I was really into and putting my reading on the backburner) when I was reading, but I was saddened to find the pacing kind of slow. The chapters were each from a different character’s perspective, which is something that we saw in SoC but not SaB (maybe that’s one of the reasons why people like the former better?). One of the characters that got many chapters was Nina Zenik, who is one of the “crows” from SoC. While I love her character, I was having a hard time wanting to read her chapters in King of Scars. That’s fairly common in books with multiple points of view since I don’t always connect with every POV, but it got to the point where I would quit reading when it got to a Nina chapter and not pick the book up again for quite a while because I knew I had a Nina chapter waiting. And it’s not like her chapters were bad once I started reading them, I just didn’t care as much about her storyline as I cared about Nikolai’s storyline. And those two plots were so far separated from each other that it was hard to switch back and forth when one chapter ended with a cliffhanger and I had to read through another person’s story until I could resolve said cliffhanger. However, as I continued reading and got to the second part of the book, things really picked up. I hate that point when you’re reading a book and it dawns on you that there are not enough pages left to resolve everything that is in need of resolution. I got to that point with this book and I freaked out for a bit until I realized there would be a sequel. Then I continued reading in peace (well… not “in peace” so much as “with bated breath”). I’m not going to say anything specific, but DANG. THAT ENDING. I’M STILL REELING. WHEN’S THE NEXT ONE GOING TO BE AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE?! SOON? PLEASE? MAKE IT SOON! *sees there is no expected release date* NOOOOOOOOO! I NEED IT NOW. Ahem, to recap: I wasn’t sure I liked the book, but I fear I may go crazy if I have to wait for the next one for very long. I’ve read some other reviews that say that Leigh Bardugo is catering to fan requests too much in this book (I can specify in what ways because spoooooilers) and I somewhat agree. There are a few things in relation to villains and pairings that didn’t have much grounding in the rest of the Grishaverse but fans were requesting. And I am not Leigh Bardugo, so what do I know? Maybe she’s been planning everything from day one maybe she’s just doing what the people want. Either way, I enjoyed the second half of this book immensely and the first half, though slow, was good too. I can’t wait for the sequel and I’m calling it now, the title is totally going to be Queen of… uh, something. Possibly wind. But that makes it sound like she’s flatulent. So maybe not that. It’s going to be cool whatever it is. Thanks for reading this review! I hope you enjoyed yourself even if you didn’t understand my ramblings. Until next time! For now I’m off to throw darts made out of bones at people! Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36307634-king-of-scars?ac=1&from_search=true |
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