Review: Not For Me.
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 06 18, 2013
(Source: I received a digital copy of this book for free on a read-to-review basis. Thanks to author Heather James, and Never Too Old For Y.A. & N.A. Books.)Roxy is a fire mage, and she's also a princess of the Helian realm. She has long been trained to be a `protector' and she will soon get to put her powers to the test when delegates from the other 3 realms travel to Helian to discuss trade agreements.Jasmine is a friend of Prince Brae of the Arcan realm, and she is hiding a secret. Streaks of colour appear in people's hair as they gain mastery of an element, Prince Brae is gaining silver streaks which show his affinity for air, whilst Jasmine has suddenly developed purple streaks - the likes of which have never been seen before. Afraid that people will think her a monster, Jasmine hides the streaks in her hair, and can't bring herself to confide in anyone.As ambassadors for the other three realms arrive in Helian to discuss trade agreements, most are a little wary - whilst the other three realms trade openly and use each other's waters, nobody trusts those from Helian after a previous war, and such grievances are difficult to forgive and forget.Will the discussions be worthwhile? What is happening to Jasmine? And can the four realms come to some sort of compromise?This book wasn't for me. The characters annoyed me, and the story dragged.Roxy had such a temper. Her interactions with Brae were less conversations, and more arguments. Even when he was being conversational, she immediately jumped to the offensive, and started arguing with him, which got really annoying. It was like she had constant PMT, and if I knew her in real life she would be the sort of person that I would avoid. I just got so sick of how on-edge she was, and how ready she was to attack everyone - either verbally or with fire.Jasmine was quite a weak girl if you ask me. She hardly had the nerve to do anything, and hiding what was happening to her from her own best friend was just cowardly. I know she believed that he would hate her if he found out, but I really think that she should have at least tried to confide in him. I just wanted her to grow a backbone and stop being such a wuss.I found a lot of the storyline a bit dull unfortunately. I thought that there were too many info-dumps where large chunks of information would just be thrust upon us like a lecture. There were also great big sections where I felt like the story went off on a bit of a tangent, and we were forced to go through things that had very little if any significance to the storyline.The constant arguments and back-stabbing grew old quick, and I'm sorry, but if you don't trust the people of Helian, why even go there to discuss things? If they're that bad, why even consider trading with them? And if you must (I know - keep your enemies closer), then would you do it on their home turf? Wouldn't you invite them somewhere else rather than going to their lands where they obviously have the home turf advantage? To be honest it seemed like the Arcan's and Helians had little intention of ever being friends, so the whole trip just seemed a little futile.In the end I can't say that I enjoyed this book. The dull parts of the storyline just bored me, the constant arguing and Roxy's high stress levels made me feel on edge, and I got to the point where I just felt so bogged down in the story that I had a hard time pushing myself to finish. I won't be reading the second book in this series, but some die-hard fantasy fans may enjoy this.Overall; YA fantasy that just had too many flaws for me.4 out of 10.