Usually, I’ll listen through something just to sate my curiosity and see what the ending had in store. Not in this case, I got about half-way through the book, seeing bland one-dimensional characters that felt more like a set of instructions do exactly what you’d expect, before I put it down. Unless you’re interested in the world itself, or have a thing for meek characters that all just go along with the status quo, don’t bother with this book.
As an example that’s relatively spoiler-free, you’ll need to wade through about half of the book before the female protagonist does anything outside the bounds of expectation. It’s not even that she doesn’t recognize or wish to take other options, she’ll be mentioned wanting to do other things the entire time. But you’ll be bored to death by about 9 hours of wanting to do something but still not doing it until practically forced to.
If not for external factors, none of the main characters seem to do something they want or chase what they feel is right because of their own personal desires. Conformity to society has its place, but it makes for a terribly boring story.
The reading is good, but can’t carry this story in the slightest.
Review from The Sword of Kaigen: A Theonite War Story →