The Traitor's Crux by Jessica Prather
Published 14th November 2017 by Oftomes Publishing
Star Rating - **
Goodreads Challenge - 84/50
I received a copy of this book from Oftomes Publishing in exchange for an honest review.
Synopsis (from Goodreads)
In a country ravaged by
years of war, plague, and death, witches and wizards are blamed for the
state of the world and hunted by the U.S. government. Kenadee Coria was
only a young girl when her brother was taken prisoner for having magical
powers.
Now sixteen years old, Kenadee discovers she too has magical powers and must face the facts: the government is watching, and they have plans for her. She’s given a deadly mission and an impossible ultimatum: the lives of a hidden group of magic refugees, or the safe return of her long-lost brother.
Now sixteen years old, Kenadee discovers she too has magical powers and must face the facts: the government is watching, and they have plans for her. She’s given a deadly mission and an impossible ultimatum: the lives of a hidden group of magic refugees, or the safe return of her long-lost brother.
My Thoughts
I saw this book about quite a lot on Twitter and the premise intrigued
me. It's a mixture of a dystopian, which I havn't read in a long time,
and fantasy, which I'm loving at the moment. So when I received an email
from Oftomes asking if I would like to read and review this one I
jumped at the chance. I'd built up quite a hype for this book and
unfortunately it didn't quite live up to my own expectations.
When I began reading my first thought was this reminds me a lot of The Hunger Games. There were also several other elements that sounded familiar to me. I can't pinpoint what they reminded me of exactly, only that I've read about similar things before. The story plot itself was quite 'tropey', corrupt government, group of so called 'traitors' and a main character who discovers she had powers, but this doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a bad story and it wasn't bad, to me it was just predictable. The whole story was set in a dystopian world with fantastical elements, select people had magic, and I liked this idea I just really wanted more depth. I really wanted some more exploration into how the magic actually worked. It seemed to be just a touch or flick of the hand and I wanted more. The 'magic' books Kenadee was taking out of the library sounded super interesting and I wanted this to be explored a bit more, along with Kenadee's magic training with Harlow.
The writing style was okay. The story was really easy to read and was quite well paced but I struggled with the predictability. There were times I found myself thinking, well I know what's going to happen so I can just skim. This meant it took me a while to read the first half of the book. At about 70% through the pace seemed to pick up and we got some more action for a while but things seemed to be over quite quickly. Something would happen and I would be excited for a while but things seemed to fizzle out quite quickly, which was a shame because there was so much potential there.
I also found it really difficult to connect to the characters. Kenadee was particularly difficult to connect to. She didn't seem to have much fight in her and, although I understand she sided with President Reed to save her family, she quickly fell back into his trap even after the offer of help from the others. She seemed to take the easy way out of the situations put in front of her and seemingly lacked sympathy for others. I would of liked a little bit more character development from her and to see her grow as a person however, this may come in the following books. I also wasn't a massive fan of the romance. It was very 'instalovely' and this just didn't sit quite right with me. I did like Harlow as a character however, she was strong willed, feisty and always fought for what she believed in. I liked learning about her back story and I did feel some emotional connection to her as a character.
Overall I thought this book had a lot of potential in the synopsis. It really appealed to me and I was looking forward to getting to it but it just didn't quite live up to my expectations, although this may be because I built this up a bit too much. So because of this please don't write this one off. If it sounds like something you might be interested in I urge you to give it a go as you may enjoy it more than me.
When I began reading my first thought was this reminds me a lot of The Hunger Games. There were also several other elements that sounded familiar to me. I can't pinpoint what they reminded me of exactly, only that I've read about similar things before. The story plot itself was quite 'tropey', corrupt government, group of so called 'traitors' and a main character who discovers she had powers, but this doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a bad story and it wasn't bad, to me it was just predictable. The whole story was set in a dystopian world with fantastical elements, select people had magic, and I liked this idea I just really wanted more depth. I really wanted some more exploration into how the magic actually worked. It seemed to be just a touch or flick of the hand and I wanted more. The 'magic' books Kenadee was taking out of the library sounded super interesting and I wanted this to be explored a bit more, along with Kenadee's magic training with Harlow.
The writing style was okay. The story was really easy to read and was quite well paced but I struggled with the predictability. There were times I found myself thinking, well I know what's going to happen so I can just skim. This meant it took me a while to read the first half of the book. At about 70% through the pace seemed to pick up and we got some more action for a while but things seemed to be over quite quickly. Something would happen and I would be excited for a while but things seemed to fizzle out quite quickly, which was a shame because there was so much potential there.
I also found it really difficult to connect to the characters. Kenadee was particularly difficult to connect to. She didn't seem to have much fight in her and, although I understand she sided with President Reed to save her family, she quickly fell back into his trap even after the offer of help from the others. She seemed to take the easy way out of the situations put in front of her and seemingly lacked sympathy for others. I would of liked a little bit more character development from her and to see her grow as a person however, this may come in the following books. I also wasn't a massive fan of the romance. It was very 'instalovely' and this just didn't sit quite right with me. I did like Harlow as a character however, she was strong willed, feisty and always fought for what she believed in. I liked learning about her back story and I did feel some emotional connection to her as a character.
Overall I thought this book had a lot of potential in the synopsis. It really appealed to me and I was looking forward to getting to it but it just didn't quite live up to my expectations, although this may be because I built this up a bit too much. So because of this please don't write this one off. If it sounds like something you might be interested in I urge you to give it a go as you may enjoy it more than me.
Overall Rating
No comments:
Post a Comment