From the cover:
"Once there was, and one day there will be. This is the beginning of every story.
Sefia lives her life on the run. After her father is viciously murdered, she flees to the forest with her aunt Nin, the only person left she can trust. They survive in the wilderness together, hunting and stealing what they need, forever looking over their shoulders for new threats. But when Nin is kidnapped, Sefia is suddenly on her own, with no way to know who’s taken Nin or where she is. Her only clue is a strange rectangular object that once belonged to her father left behind, something she comes to realize is a book.
Though reading is unheard of in Sefia’s world, she slowly learns, unearthing the book’s closely guarded secrets, which may be the key to Nin’s disappearance and discovering what really happened the day her father was killed. With no time to lose, and the unexpected help of swashbuckling pirates and an enigmatic stranger, Sefia sets out on a dangerous journey to rescue her aunt, using the book as her guide. In the end, she discovers what the book had been trying to tell her all along: Nothing is as it seems, and the end of her story is only the beginning."
If it hasn't already become clear, I'm a sucker for pretty book covers. I mean, realistically, who isn't? That's the point of a cover, to make you want to read the book! This cover...ohh boy, it made me want to read this book. Look at it. Feast your eyes. It's gorgeous.
Then read the words, "This is a book. You are the reader. Look closer. There's magic here."
I couldn't not be tingling with anticipation after that. I wanted to love everything about this book. It's such an intriguing concept, after all. In a world where books are not allowed and no one (or mostly no one) even knows how to read, Sefia is on her own, on the run from the unknown assassins who murdered her father and kidnapped her aunt Nin, protecting a mysterious rectangular object...The Book. She rescues a young man from a group of men who kidnap boys to brutalize them and force them to battle others in fighting rings, and the two of them team up to discover who is behind the kidnapping of her aunt and uncover the man they have been told is behind these horrific fighting rings. What's not to love about this premise?
As it turns out, the fact that this is all laid out by about page 65, and then nothing much new happens until roughly 350 pages later. It wasn't bad...there was enough to keep me reading, even if I wasn't dying to pick up this book over some of the others I'm working on. There was some excitement and intrigue, and I really enjoyed some of the characters. I just wish things had moved a little more quickly. The pacing of the book felt off, and the transitions between Sefia's story and her reading of The Book weren't always the smoothest.
That being said, Chee did manage to reel me back in. Just when I was getting to a point near the end of the book where I had decided if it didn't grab me soon, I wasn't going to be reading the next book, I got to a chapter titled, appropriately, "answers." Those answers weren't much, but they were enough to convince me to give The Speaker a chance. I'm hoping now that most of the world-building is done and characters have been established, the pace of the next book will keep me more engaged. If not...at least there are plenty other books in the sea. Or something.
No comments:
Post a Comment