Review: Well Done But Familiar Feeling YA Coming of Age Fantasy
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 5, 2014
The "young boy learns he can do magic and has to master it while being chased by bad people" thing has been done a LOT.  However, there are a number of things about Mr. Skiera's iteration that I found a little unusual and liked.  First, it flows well and is easy to read.  Second, people die, actions have consequences, and the heroes journey (fleeing) did not result in the stereotypical assembly of useful companions.  Rather, the folks the hero meets are not wholly evil or wholly good, but are nuanced and reasonably "real" (though not fully fleshed out).  I also liked the hero's learning of magic.  Although it seems he has inborn talent, he learns very little throughout this book and has to work for it.  These aspects of the book, combined with the good flow, made the book enjoyable to me.Unfortunately, there are a good number of cliche parts that I found a bit painful and unnecessary.  For example, the meets-the-princess bit felt like it was in there because it was on the checklist, and didn't feel natural.  Similarly, I groaned when the hero met a helpful wood nymph (or whatever she was).  In exchanging emails with the author, he admitted that he deliberately included a lot of the familiar tropes.There is nothing wrong with adding the familiar elements to an extent, and as I said, I did find this book well done and a better than average coming of age story.  Overall though, I just found the package a little familiar, a little too skewed towards young adult, and including too many of the familiar tropes for my tastes.  My rating is 3 1/2 stars, rounded up to 4.  I don't plan to read the next volume.For a coming of age story that feels more adult, I recommend Bloodsong by Anthony Ryan.P.S.  I reviewed a copy of this book at the author's request and received a free copy.  If this influenced my review at all, it was only towards the favorable rounding up, which I often do anyway.