Review: An amazing read
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 15, 2014
Truly stunning. I have never read anything by Abercrombie and that has clearly been a mistake. This was certainly a nice break from most of the YA that I’ve been reading, and a must for anyone who enjoys fantasy.Our wonderful protagonist, Yarvi, was born with a deformed hand. Not able to be a warrior, and thankfully a younger son, Yarvi has spent his time training to be a Minister. He is for a life of peace, not war. All of this changes when his father and brother are killed, and rather than becoming Brother Yarvi, he must become King Yarvi.While Yarvi starts out soft, reality throws him into a world he is little prepared for, but is forced to endure. A rough life hardens him, and not just physically. In fact, by the end of the book you could say that he has become too hard. He makes mistakes, he survives, but most importantly, he learns. Yarvi grows. He becomes what he needs to become, and can admit to the mistakes that he has made. He makes friends with people who were forced together by circumstance. He inspired loyalty in them. He is kind to those who need it. He is intelligent and learned. He is a wonderfully written character with a very realistic personal journey.I found myself loving most of the other characters as well. I started cheering for certain characters to survive, even when I did not love them at first. And this was even when I could not trust any of them. I learned early on in this book that no one is to be trusted. And yet, by the end of the book I realized that there were people I wound up trusting anyway, even when I knew better. And that was a mistake. Something that I loved was that characters weren’t just good or just evil. There’s a very fine line between the two that even Yarvi can’t escape. This makes the characters so much more realistic.The action and the suspense were amazing. I never wanted to put the book down. I had to know what was going to happen next, and for the most part, guessing was fairly impossible. There were definitely two (maybe three) twists that really shocked me. These were things that I just did not see coming at all. Especially that very last one at the end of the book. There was one scenario I imagined that did not come to pass and I am grateful for that because that would have been pretty terrible.The worldbuilding was fantastic, as it should be with an excellent fantasy novel, and the atmosphere was dark and gritty and grim. And oh how I love books like that. This was certainly no exception and I am eagerly awaiting the next two books.