Late First Impression - There's a Lot Here
I love a good fantasy map as much as the next person. What I needed was a list of characters and terminology.
The first look at this book has a LOT in it. We are thrown in a whirlwind chase from high school to the portal to Biringan. There is a betrayal in the first twenty five pages, a secret revealed about MJ's mother, a claim of "I don't know how much more I can take" in that same span. Maybe I'm just not used to high fantasy, but it felt like I was fast-forwarding through the exposition. I would have wanted to see a bit more of an introduction to MJ, a little more in the narration to mark her as a teenager. Her revelations felt...off to me.
I do want to applaud the use of Filipino mythology within high fantasy - I love how diverse fantasy is becoming as a genre, and the worldbuilding here is really cool. I just wish I had a little more background to the characters and a litle more detail in the first battle rather than feeling like it was a speed run.
The first look at this book has a LOT in it. We are thrown in a whirlwind chase from high school to the portal to Biringan. There is a betrayal in the first twenty five pages, a secret revealed about MJ's mother, a claim of "I don't know how much more I can take" in that same span. Maybe I'm just not used to high fantasy, but it felt like I was fast-forwarding through the exposition. I would have wanted to see a bit more of an introduction to MJ, a little more in the narration to mark her as a teenager. Her revelations felt...off to me.
I do want to applaud the use of Filipino mythology within high fantasy - I love how diverse fantasy is becoming as a genre, and the worldbuilding here is really cool. I just wish I had a little more background to the characters and a litle more detail in the first battle rather than feeling like it was a speed run.