Overall Reading Experience/Rating
3 Stars
I was excited to read this. I had even started trying to read a couple pages when I first picked up the book. Normally I would wait until I knew other people were reading, not very leader like behavior I know, but I wanted to make sure I had at least one person to talk to about what we were reading.
In my mind, TOG is young adult. It’s a bit more mature due to certain themes and depictions but still YA. Legendborne would also be in the same boat.
This book read a little too young for me. The author writes just fine and can string sentences along very nice but it still felt too young. Granted the main character is 17 so I know that I am seeing life through the eyes of a 17 year girl despite being 23 at the time. Normally that’s fine, but it just wasn’t what I was looking for. For some reason I thought it would differently but maybe I had my hopes too high.
While the writing was decent, I felt like sometimes it was hard to picture what Grace was describing. I know I’m not the most visual person and that probably contributed to that problem, but the author didn’t really help at times.
The pacing was okay for the amount that I read. The magic system really cool and enjoyed it. Nothing was super complicated to understand.
The romance or what I saw of it twas kind of whatever, really could’ve done without it. Not very subtle about who she’s supposed to end up with. I feel like Grace was trying to do an enemies to lovers thing but it just didn’t give that.
The themes of freedom and finding your own place were present throughout the book. I didn’t read all the way so I can’t comment too much on its impact on the book and characters. But a story about a brown girl making her own way is always nice.
Rating/Final Thoughts
I’m not sure if I ever will return to finish this book. I don’t hate it but I do know myself enough to know that I’m not the intended audience. However, I love the representation, it’s always great to see a brown girl as the main character in a fantasy and not a side character.
Despite not finishing, I would rate this a 3. It’s not entirely dislikable and the writing isn’t bad, it’s just not for me. I feel like this would be a nice bus or car ride read if you had a long journey ahead of you.
The Abode 