Genre: YA Fantasy
Synopsis: Sixteen years ago the Kingdom of Winter was conquered and its citizens enslaved, leaving them without magic or a monarch. Now the Winterians' only hope for freedom is the high survivors who managed to escape, and who have been waiting for the opportunity to steal back Winter's magic and rebuild the Kingdom ever since.
Orphaned as an infant during Winter's defeat, Meira has lived her whole life as a refugee, raised by the Winterians' general, Sir. Training to be a warrior—and desperately in love with her best friend and future king, Mather—she would do anything to help Winter rise to power again.
So when scouts discover the location of the ancient locket that can restore their magic, Meira decides to go after it herself. Finally, she's scaling towers and fighting enemy soldiers just as she's always dreamed she would. But the mission doesn't go as planned, and Meira soon finds herself thrust into a world of evil magic and dangerous politics—and ultimately comes to realize that her destiny is not, never has been, her own.
Talk about disappointment.
I went into this book expecting so much, especially after hearing so many wonderful reviews, but honestly...
This book, to put it bluntly, was not great. Of course, this is just my personal experience and thoughts on the book, and I'm sure there are many who would argue otherwise, but yeah. There are so many things I can talk about. Like the idea that Meira was a pretty flat character, and I felt no connection to her whatsoever, or anyone else in the book for that matter. Mather was alright, but I feel like I barely got to know him because of the fact that most of the time I even heard about him was through Meira's gushy thoughts and feelings. Yes, I get it Meira, you love him and it's oh so terribly sad that you can't show him you love him because of the typical "we're not meant to be together." Talk about YA tropes. This book was literally the epitome of a cheesy, cliché YA fantasy novel: 1. Too-perfect, athletic heroine with a tragic backstory which is probably supposed to cause the reader to pity her (I didn't). 2. A beautiful boy whose love is definitely within her reach but since she makes a problem out of everything, she pushes said boy away. 3. Evil king who's taken over and enslaved innocent people. I've read this type of schema in YA too many times, and honestly, I'm getting tired of it. (Side note: To be frank, I think the only author who can actually pull this off is Sarah J. Maas: her characters actually have depth, and the problems are actually worth going through a whole series to see them be solved.) I felt like this author tried so hard to make everything bad-ass. But unfortunately, to me it just came out as very irritating. The author is very talented, don't get me wrong. Her writing is incredible and very poetic, but I felt like the story in general was very unoriginal and definitely lacked depth. I felt no connection to anyone or anything, and as a result, I found myself bored only 100 pages in. The ending was also quite predictable, therefore making the whole book quite anticlimactic. I went into this book really hoping to like, but I left feeling cheated in a way.
I most likely will not be picking up the second book, but once again, this is just me personally. There are many people I know who thoroughly enjoyed this book (it's why I picked it up in the first place) and so this book may just be right for you.
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