Review: OK -- didn't live up to it's promise
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 03 1, 2012
I was somewhat intrigued by the story line and then persuaded by the great reviews.  I just can't agree with them.  This is an OK little story that felt more like one at the YA level and would have really benefited from a lot of editing:1) There are "highfalutin" words used occasionally that don't make any sense in the context in which they are used.  My guess is that they were selected from a thesaurus in an attempt to make the writing sound sophisticated.  I can't think of an example right now, and I didn't write them down as I came across them, but a simpler, less "sophisticated" synonym (probably the original word) would have made much more sense.2) A phrase that is obviously a favorite of the author's but is extremely over-used is "in all."  It is often used several times in just a few paragraphs.  I am normally a pretty forgiving reader and can usually overlook a lot, but after a while I found it quite distracting.3) A character exclaims, "by all that's wholly!"  Uh?  I assume the author meant, "by all that's holy."  There's really no excuse for missing an error like that.4) The story switches from 1st person to 3rd person and back again within a couple of paragraphs, within the same scene, and with the same character.5) Then there are grammatical problems, words that are just left out, etc. and the reader is left to try to make sense of the sentence.6) Emotions are extreme (that particularly made it feel like a YA story).  And there is no explanation for the way Kela is treated by her grandfather -- we're told he hates her, he glares at her, he thinks she's a weakling, others have to secretly help her or incur his wrath, he accepts her siblings but refuses to acknowledge her as his granddaughter, etc.  But then we're expected to believe that, even though she's being treated so badly, he's doing what he thinks is best for her.7) The setting, characters and plot are not fleshed out at all, and many opportunities to do so are missed.  The only exception to this is the protagonist, Kela. Very little is revealed about the different societies mentioned, the other characters, their powers, the enemy, why Kela is treated the way she is, etc.  In fact, so little is revealed that I really have no desire to continue reading the story in Part Two to find out more.