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mnboyer's review against another edition
2.0
A novel filled with some interesting action sequences involving monsters (like dragons and griffins) that manages to fall flat when it comes to the character development--at least for me, I know that there are a lot of readers that praise this book. Many of the concepts (floating continents) are interesting and I do enjoy some science fiction and fantasy elements.
Yet what I really enjoy in any story are the characters. This particular book totes itself as a HarlequinTeen division book (no, I have no idea what I expected 'Harlequin Teen' to be) yet there's barely any romance throughout. I didn't want or need anything sexual or explicit. I just felt that even the "mini-love-story" (as I am calling it) was somewhat...boring...and it did nothing to really excite my imagination or make me feel like the romance was even necessary. Can a female character not become a heroine without a male character's help these days?
Overall, a quick read with some interesting visuals. I'd mark it as good summer reading for teens. Yet at the same time it only managed 2.5 stars from me.
Yet what I really enjoy in any story are the characters. This particular book totes itself as a HarlequinTeen division book (no, I have no idea what I expected 'Harlequin Teen' to be) yet there's barely any romance throughout. I didn't want or need anything sexual or explicit. I just felt that even the "mini-love-story" (as I am calling it) was somewhat...boring...and it did nothing to really excite my imagination or make me feel like the romance was even necessary. Can a female character not become a heroine without a male character's help these days?
Overall, a quick read with some interesting visuals. I'd mark it as good summer reading for teens. Yet at the same time it only managed 2.5 stars from me.
booksandladders's review against another edition
1.0
Disclaimer: I won a free copy of this book as one of the Goodreads First Reads giveaways courtesy of Harlequin Teen.
I'm sad to say there are no redeeming qualities in this one. The worldbuilding was horrible and extremely lacking, the characters were MEH, the plot was also meh, and the dragons didn't eat everyone at the end like I'd hoped. I should have known from reading the other reviews that I wouldn't like this one but I thought I'd take a chance anyway but I feel like it was a bit of waste.
I don't really have any good things to say about this one tbh. I don't like being too negative because I feel bad: someone worked hard to make this. But this just did not turn my crank at all. There were so many plot holes because of the terrible worldbuilding that I couldn't look past them. It seemed like any time something came up that the author threw something else into the mix to fill the gap but it just came across as awkward. Like the whole prophecy at the end was just random and not well developed at all. It made me roll my eyes and laugh.
The characters were so meh. Kali was alright but everyone else was just ick to me. Griffin was like a wet paper towel, just there to try and clean up some messes but making them worse. He was also like a terrible monster hunter considering he almost died like 15 times in the book. I think every time he met a monster he almost died. And he just wasn't love interest worthy. Oh and his heritage was stupid af. Jonash was stiff as a board and pulled a which was obvious to everyone but the MC. Just. I can't even describe to you how terrible his character arc is without spoiling it but it's bad.
The pacing was so off too. So much time would pass because the author would write "this much time has passed now" and I was just left baffled. Show me time passing, show me her healing, show me them walking to the mountains -- don't just say "ah yes, this whole trip has taken 5 days and we're here." I hate travelogue as much as the next person, but I hate time gaps even more. And the whole healing thing was just sighs. She had broken ribs and was shooting a bow and arrow with no difficulty like three days later.
As much as I enjoy that there are more standalone fantasy books, I think this one either needed more pages or another whole book so I could understand the world. AKA so there could be worldbuilding. Like there was none. None.
I do not recommend this one at all. Like it's a hard pass, not even a borrow from the library. You can read my status updates to learn more about what I didn't like about it.
Books and Ladders | Queen of the Bookshelves | Books Are My Fandom | Twitter | Instagram | Bloglovin'
I'm sad to say there are no redeeming qualities in this one. The worldbuilding was horrible and extremely lacking, the characters were MEH, the plot was also meh, and the dragons didn't eat everyone at the end like I'd hoped. I should have known from reading the other reviews that I wouldn't like this one but I thought I'd take a chance anyway but I feel like it was a bit of waste.
I don't really have any good things to say about this one tbh. I don't like being too negative because I feel bad: someone worked hard to make this. But this just did not turn my crank at all. There were so many plot holes because of the terrible worldbuilding that I couldn't look past them. It seemed like any time something came up that the author threw something else into the mix to fill the gap but it just came across as awkward. Like the whole prophecy at the end was just random and not well developed at all. It made me roll my eyes and laugh.
The characters were so meh. Kali was alright but everyone else was just ick to me. Griffin was like a wet paper towel, just there to try and clean up some messes but making them worse. He was also like a terrible monster hunter considering he almost died like 15 times in the book. I think every time he met a monster he almost died. And he just wasn't love interest worthy. Oh and his heritage was stupid af. Jonash was stiff as a board and pulled a
Spoiler
Hans from FrozenThe pacing was so off too. So much time would pass because the author would write "this much time has passed now" and I was just left baffled. Show me time passing, show me her healing, show me them walking to the mountains -- don't just say "ah yes, this whole trip has taken 5 days and we're here." I hate travelogue as much as the next person, but I hate time gaps even more. And the whole healing thing was just sighs. She had broken ribs and was shooting a bow and arrow with no difficulty like three days later.
As much as I enjoy that there are more standalone fantasy books, I think this one either needed more pages or another whole book so I could understand the world. AKA so there could be worldbuilding. Like there was none. None.
I do not recommend this one at all. Like it's a hard pass, not even a borrow from the library. You can read my status updates to learn more about what I didn't like about it.
Books and Ladders | Queen of the Bookshelves | Books Are My Fandom | Twitter | Instagram | Bloglovin'
7markers's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
3.5
a_ghostintheroom's review against another edition
3.0
Honestly, this book at all the potential in the world and it fell and felt flat. It was incredibly disappointing to try to read this after finishing Harry Potter and it was my mistake to attempt that. I may as well just reread Harry Potter for all this book was worth to me. Usually, when I dislike a book this much, I just stop reading it, but right now I'm hurting for books to read and I decided I needed to plow through as much as I wanted to put it down. My main qualms with this story lie in the actual storytelling. I always read book descriptions or jacket inserts before checking them out so you know anything I pick up, I have already loved the plot. So here's where I found issue: there's no plot, no story, but the paragraph written for the jacket. Sure, there's the whole conspiracy theme alongside it, but everything this story contained could be squished into one page. Everything else was extraneous, boring. The love interest was hailed as a monster hunter, and while that was true, he was also meek and soft and predictably the one of the big "reveals". He had no backbone except for the one the main character was holding upright, (the main character actually was alright, nothing special, but at least she wasn't a complete let down). Also, once the main character fell to the earth, in order for the author to move the story, she was chased by FIVE different monsters. I mean, this was the bulk of the story, main character falls to earth, sudden monster! Main character can't find water, sudden monster! Main character is with love interest, sudden monster! You get the idea. I suppose there's a world in which a different author could have balance it better, but this was not one. Another eye-rolling factor was the author's insistence on using the full spectrum of the rainbow to describe everything. It's as though the main character is running through some seriously bad acid trip. Everything is a damn kaleidoscope of color and you have to read about the hue of each leaf on every plant, because for some reason, they all seem to be a different color somehow? I found myself skimming much of this nonsense. In conclusion, if you're interested in this book, save yourself the time and only read the jacket summary and know you've basically read the whole book sans monsters and rainbow forests.
kay0326's review against another edition
4.0
4.5 stars ⭐️ July Book exchange
I actually really enjoyed reading this. To hear about the dragons, because dragons are my favorite, but to hear how Griffin took them down, &’ I was shook when I realized that he was not only Benu, BUT he was the 2 year old toddler that was thrown off the edge. I really do feel for this story.
The only thing I didn’t like was how annoying Keli got because she was super stubborn &’ didn’t want to come to terms with the fact that the people closest to her lied about something like this. That her own father supported throwing the Benu over the side. I also don’t like the ending part with the Phoenix, I think it could’ve been explained &’ written differently.
Other than that, o would definitely reread this in a heartbeat. I live for the adrenaline &’ thrill that this story produces &’ that these characters have.
I actually really enjoyed reading this. To hear about the dragons, because dragons are my favorite, but to hear how Griffin took them down, &’ I was shook when I realized that he was not only Benu, BUT he was the 2 year old toddler that was thrown off the edge. I really do feel for this story.
The only thing I didn’t like was how annoying Keli got because she was super stubborn &’ didn’t want to come to terms with the fact that the people closest to her lied about something like this. That her own father supported throwing the Benu over the side. I also don’t like the ending part with the Phoenix, I think it could’ve been explained &’ written differently.
Other than that, o would definitely reread this in a heartbeat. I live for the adrenaline &’ thrill that this story produces &’ that these characters have.
jnunchucks's review against another edition
1.0
I received an ARC of Heir to the Sun from the Goodreads First Reads giveaway.
It's taken me a while to write a review on this book because it was very hard to get into it, I tried to start this book on two separate occasion & couldn't but last night I finally decided to just power through it.
The thing that really drew me to this book was the cover and although it was a quick read, from reading the blurb on the back cover, I expected so much more from this book. I didn't really like the way it was written & I feel like there wasn't enough dialogue between the characters. I wish Sun had shown what was happening on Ashra after Kali had fallen, because Kali's time on earth was very boring. I also feel like this book was very surface level & it was hard to connect with the characters and their "struggles" since there wasn't much character development.
MINOR SPOILERS
The monster fighting definitely fell flat for me & the only interesting part was finding out that Jonash was actually Benu, which is the race he and his father were trying to destroy the whole time.
It's taken me a while to write a review on this book because it was very hard to get into it, I tried to start this book on two separate occasion & couldn't but last night I finally decided to just power through it.
The thing that really drew me to this book was the cover and although it was a quick read, from reading the blurb on the back cover, I expected so much more from this book. I didn't really like the way it was written & I feel like there wasn't enough dialogue between the characters. I wish Sun had shown what was happening on Ashra after Kali had fallen, because Kali's time on earth was very boring. I also feel like this book was very surface level & it was hard to connect with the characters and their "struggles" since there wasn't much character development.
MINOR SPOILERS
The monster fighting definitely fell flat for me & the only interesting part was finding out that Jonash was actually Benu, which is the race he and his father were trying to destroy the whole time.
britomarte's review against another edition
3.0
Started off interesting, but I was disappointed with the twist. It turned a cool premise into just more of the same.
wordsareweapons's review against another edition
3.0
i have to say that i enjoyed this book for the most part. It was really refreshing having a main character who is sheltered actually acknowledge that fact and own up to it. I thought the story was really unique and the world building well done. It's not a long book and the fact that I got a good feel for the characters and world is a nice change compared to some books. The only thing is that I just didn't really connect I guess? There was just something about the story that was missing for me to really love it.
lpcoolgirl's review against another edition
5.0
Oh, I had a really great time reading this book, it was such a great story!
visubooks's review against another edition
3.0
What a fun read! Kali is the heir to the kingdom of the floating continents. She is force into a betrothal for the good of her people, but Kali ends up falling of the edge and survives. Ending up on the monster infested earth. Now with the help of her savior Griffin she must survive crossing the monster ridden earth to get home. But soon she starts learning there are secrets about her kingdoms origins and she’s not sure if she should dictate her life for her people. A fast paced, adventure filled story. Definitely a fun fresh fantasy story. Love the attention to detail throughout the book that brought the story to life. The only thing I would have preferred is for the ending to have been a bit longer, in my opinion it fell a bit short. Overall a great fun read, definitely recommend!!!