So, this book is not half bad. The story is rather interesting and the pacing is pretty good. But I rated it 4 stars for a reason… or rather 3
1. Driving Force: Overall the plot is pretty realistic, but also simplistic. Now this isn’t necessarily bad, but I expected there to be more of an unraveling throughout the story. But it’s more or less just an introduction of what happened to the MC (main character) to motivate their actions at the beginning and then again towards the end.
Anyone who listens to the book will feel that the driving force kind of feels a bit week towards the end, and the reasoning for the MC doing what they do seems plausible, but just a bit flimsy.
2. Characters: Most characters felt pretty unique in their own rite. But others felt a bit off. For example the MC’s daughter is written more like a rebellious teen rather than a full grown woman. There is also the fact that there is a a revolving cast of a handful of characters that never get more than a couple of lines at a time unless it’s an important event. Overall the characters are neat, but they could use more time to shine in the book for people to really be invested in them.
3. Narration: Now as a disclaimer I have nothing against this narrator in particular. In honesty I like his narration. However, for this particular book I don’t believe that his voice was good for all the roles.
For the main characters role (Finn) I think he did a great job. His voice was perfect to portray a matured man who grumbled at everyone and was annoyed at everything. But when it came to his accented voices. I was not a big fan of them. They felt super heavy and almost stereotypical at times. I’m sure they did their best to emulate a Middle Easten kinda voice, but it probably would have sounded better had he not gone so heavy on the accents. (I know some people didnt particularly like his feminine voice, but I wont fault him for that. Lower masculine voices trying to emulate higher feminine voices typically wont sound super convincing.
All in all it’s a pretty good book and I reccomend anyone to read it. Just keep in mind that while this is a fantasy novel it is quite realistic at times and mind break your immersion with some of the topics that show up. Regardless, give it a try and you may be pleasantly surprised.