For starters: this was an ARC provided for my honest review. I'm reading this coming off of a reading slump and I've never delved very deep in Arthurian tales, let alone retellings so my review may be a bit skewed.
This was the fastest I've read a book in maybe a month. Granted, I've only read about two books in that month, but it's been that much of a struggle to get through. I thought that perhaps a lighter Young Adult novel might be what pulls me out of my slump, but even that hadn't been able to yank me out... until this came along.
It was fun. It was cute. It had characters that I enjoyed with all the light-heartedness I needed while still maintaining stakes and trials for them to overcome. Sure, there are some predictable tropes seen often in YA, but I don't find that bad in the least. In fact, there were at least two incidences in which I thought "oh, goodness, not this..." and then was pleasantly surprised to find that what I expected did not occur.
I was also surprised how some characters turned out to be far more friendly than you would be led to believe. It was a welcome turn of events.
The writing was light and easy to follow. I quite enjoyed the style, though if you took a shot for every "sard" or "sarding", you wouldn't make it many pages further. It was also the first time I've seen the word "doffing" used outside the scientific field. Nevertheless, I appreciated how the writing wasn't difficult to digest and the descriptions were well written and not overly detailed to the point of being horrendously boring.
If I could give one major critique: I felt the pacing was a little unbalanced. Perhaps I feel this primarily because I went in expecting a standalone and instead read what I've come to realize is the first of a series. There's a lot of weight into developing characters, setting, and plot until the last 100 pages where you realize things are being set up for a continuation. This is common and not very surprising in retrospect. Pacing aside, I still enjoyed this read and would readily do it all over again.
This was the fastest I've read a book in maybe a month. Granted, I've only read about two books in that month, but it's been that much of a struggle to get through. I thought that perhaps a lighter Young Adult novel might be what pulls me out of my slump, but even that hadn't been able to yank me out... until this came along.
It was fun. It was cute. It had characters that I enjoyed with all the light-heartedness I needed while still maintaining stakes and trials for them to overcome. Sure, there are some predictable tropes seen often in YA, but I don't find that bad in the least. In fact, there were at least two incidences in which I thought "oh, goodness, not this..." and then was pleasantly surprised to find that what I expected did not occur.
I was also surprised how some characters turned out to be far more friendly than you would be led to believe. It was a welcome turn of events.
The writing was light and easy to follow. I quite enjoyed the style, though if you took a shot for every "sard" or "sarding", you wouldn't make it many pages further. It was also the first time I've seen the word "doffing" used outside the scientific field. Nevertheless, I appreciated how the writing wasn't difficult to digest and the descriptions were well written and not overly detailed to the point of being horrendously boring.
If I could give one major critique: I felt the pacing was a little unbalanced. Perhaps I feel this primarily because I went in expecting a standalone and instead read what I've come to realize is the first of a series. There's a lot of weight into developing characters, setting, and plot until the last 100 pages where you realize things are being set up for a continuation. This is common and not very surprising in retrospect. Pacing aside, I still enjoyed this read and would readily do it all over again.