Realm of the Banished by Jennifer M. Waldrop ARC Book Review

 

Disclaimer: I received an ARC, which thank you, but it in no way affects my review. My thoughts are my own.

TW: sexual assault (which is not mentioned anywhere at the beginning or end of the ARC it is short and validated by the male characters in the book when adressed, don't be me and read it at night)

This was okay, nothing I have never read before and Nayla was annoying to me. She kept making choices, especially towards the end, that made less and less sense to me. I thought that as the book progressed it would have been better and better choices as she learns more. The opposite happened. At least in my eyes.

A lot of information is also thrown at you about the politics in such a short book, had it been longer it may have felt different. It felt a lot like info dumping in certain parts or rather throwing words around that mean nothing because they are invented for the fantasy world (or giving a two - three sentences of explanation that with all of the information some will get lost at the speed it is being given). It was hard to keep track of things, and I say this as a high fantasy reader who loves political and character driven books. I really enjoyed Conall, but we see a medium amount of them and of him overall even though he's the most interesting in my opinion. Malik was also nice to read, he was just that character with that banter and those sentences that made you smirk and he is just amazing.

The magic is interesting as it is lost when people are banished so there is this whole belief that because our MC has more powers than others she will save them somehow. I liked parts of it and some were boring to me because I kept having to re-read due to the fact that so much information is thrown at us at such a speed. The women characters are strong and opiniated which I really liked (YAY women). 

--PSA--

should not be the job of the reviewer to put TW

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Anyhow, there is a lot of good that was made in this book, the world is interesting as a whole and I think there is a lot of potential in this story and with this author. It is her debut novel and I think there is a lot that could happen in the next one that will make this great. Unfortunately this one was just alright for me.

 The first half of the book stood at a 2 - 2.5 star, slow and too much information given at once, while the second half was a 3 star, good but not amazing with a somewhat better pacing. Not a book I will remember the details of in a couple of days or weeks unfortunately.

Overall 3/5 stars. 

Won't pick up the sequel, but maybe a future book by her.

Bookarina.