krissy22247's review
3.0
I wanted to enjoy this book. The premise seemed interesting and I generally enjoy a fantasy adventure story. Unfortunately, there was a lot lost in execution.
The characters felt flat and the dialogue was forced. The magical elements were interesting, but nothing really seemed to mesh well together. There is very little in history of the world. Where did the imps and the metamorphs cone from? How did they fit into the world? For that matter, where did The Goat come from? The Jillian of the story is an ominous presence that we know nothing about.
I have never been a fan of the "boy meets girl and they fall desperately in love right away" trope. Add that to the cliche and abrupt cliffhanger, and the story left me a bit sour. Then of course there's the typos I found throughout the book.
I feel like this could be a good read for kids, but not if their expecting any kind of nuanced story telling.
I did enjoy the various flora and fauna created in this world.
The reason I decided on three stars instead of two was the obvious work that went into the book. There is a really interesting website that goes along with it and a glossary at the end of the book. The author is clearly dedicated to his world, which I commend.
I received this book as part of a Goodreads giveaway. This had no impact on my review.
The characters felt flat and the dialogue was forced. The magical elements were interesting, but nothing really seemed to mesh well together. There is very little in history of the world. Where did the imps and the metamorphs cone from? How did they fit into the world? For that matter, where did The Goat come from? The Jillian of the story is an ominous presence that we know nothing about.
I have never been a fan of the "boy meets girl and they fall desperately in love right away" trope. Add that to the cliche and abrupt cliffhanger, and the story left me a bit sour. Then of course there's the typos I found throughout the book.
I feel like this could be a good read for kids, but not if their expecting any kind of nuanced story telling.
I did enjoy the various flora and fauna created in this world.
The reason I decided on three stars instead of two was the obvious work that went into the book. There is a really interesting website that goes along with it and a glossary at the end of the book. The author is clearly dedicated to his world, which I commend.
I received this book as part of a Goodreads giveaway. This had no impact on my review.
imzadirose's review
3.0
I received this book from the author for my honest review.
Forestium is the story of a boy on a journey to find his father who he was told was killed but he believes alive because of a series of dreams. The boy, Joshua, sets off on his journey and finds old and new friends along the way. He learns he must find 3 orbs to open the Portallas to find his father, but doing so with require a sacrifice.
The Good:
The story was cute. It moved along VERY quickly with short choppy chapters. It seems like the book is much shorter because it's such a quick and easy read.
The quest to find his father, the finding of the orbs and what the orbs are/do are interesting and keep you engaged while reading.
The Not so Good:
The characters were flat and uninteresting. I didn't really care about any of them, perhaps because it was such a short book. If there was more character development than maybe I would have. However:
The characters did NOT read as 16-17ish. I had to keep telling myself he was 17. The book doesn't read like YA. It reads more like MG and if not told the character's age I would have guessed 10-11, 13 at the MOST.
Which made the "insta-love" super creepy. Even at 17, them professing their undying love was pretty creepy. I'm not a fan of insta-love anyways, so in this book it did NOT fit and I would have liked the book a LOT better without it.
Overall it was a good, but not great, book. Had it been classified a MG book and without the "romance" it may have been a 5 star book for me. But the flat characters and insta-love took it down a few notches for me. I couldn't see them as 16-17ish so all the romance was icky to me. The journey and the quest itself was great, the romance wasn't needed.
Forestium is the story of a boy on a journey to find his father who he was told was killed but he believes alive because of a series of dreams. The boy, Joshua, sets off on his journey and finds old and new friends along the way. He learns he must find 3 orbs to open the Portallas to find his father, but doing so with require a sacrifice.
The Good:
The story was cute. It moved along VERY quickly with short choppy chapters. It seems like the book is much shorter because it's such a quick and easy read.
The quest to find his father, the finding of the orbs and what the orbs are/do are interesting and keep you engaged while reading.
The Not so Good:
The characters were flat and uninteresting. I didn't really care about any of them, perhaps because it was such a short book. If there was more character development than maybe I would have. However:
The characters did NOT read as 16-17ish. I had to keep telling myself he was 17. The book doesn't read like YA. It reads more like MG and if not told the character's age I would have guessed 10-11, 13 at the MOST.
Which made the "insta-love" super creepy. Even at 17, them professing their undying love was pretty creepy. I'm not a fan of insta-love anyways, so in this book it did NOT fit and I would have liked the book a LOT better without it.
Overall it was a good, but not great, book. Had it been classified a MG book and without the "romance" it may have been a 5 star book for me. But the flat characters and insta-love took it down a few notches for me. I couldn't see them as 16-17ish so all the romance was icky to me. The journey and the quest itself was great, the romance wasn't needed.
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