strawberryjammed's review against another edition
2.0
I was so excited to read this, but in the end it just fell flat.
ofliterarynature's review against another edition
2.0
Honestly, I'm still debating whether this actually deserves 3 stars or if I should bump it down to two. I enjoyed Mindy's other work and I love getting to support local[ish] authors, so I was really excited to read her first fantasy novel!! But I think that first sentence kind of hints at how that turned out :/ While I think the story/world had potential (most do), it lost focus very quickly. What was the main plot? I'm not 100% sure. For some reason there were 4 separate narrators, and while they were all important players in the story, their individual perspectives didn't really seem to add anything to the progression of the (assumed) main plot. Add in the fact that two were written in 1st person and the others in 3rd and I am thoroughly confused. I don't plan to continue the series and would not recommend.
megkerr1's review against another edition
1.0
This was a pretty awful book. I'm upset that I couldn't enjoy this book, because I enjoyed McGinnis's other books such as The Female of the Species and other contemporary reads. I couldn't connect to the characters or the plot. There were 4 POVs. While multiple POVs can enhance a story, I feel like more than 3 can drag it out. Also, there was a love square/pentagon going on that I couldn't stomach with one of them bordering on incest.
The idea pitch for this book is interesting, but the execution wasn't fleshed out. If this book had gone through another round of editing or maybe kept it with 2 narrators, I might have been able to figure out the plot. There was little worldbuilding or character development as well. I do not plan on finishing the series.
The idea pitch for this book is interesting, but the execution wasn't fleshed out. If this book had gone through another round of editing or maybe kept it with 2 narrators, I might have been able to figure out the plot. There was little worldbuilding or character development as well. I do not plan on finishing the series.
sandraselvas's review against another edition
2.0
I love Mindy McGinnis both as an author and person, but this book bored me to death. It was hard for me to keep up with the multiple POVs and to actually care about the characters. I really wish I had loved this book as its premise sounded truly interesting.
pagesplotsandpints's review against another edition
3.0
Initial Impressions 6/18/19: GIVEN TO THE SEA was a really interesting concept but I never quite felt like it panned out. This is the first in a two-book series and I kind of felt like with how little the plot developed that whatever the second book is, we probably could have fit it all into one book.
The book is about Khosa who was born into the family line of women whose daughters are all "given to the sea" to keep the sea at peace and protect the town/land/region. Each female is given to the sea as a teenager (I don't remember if everyone is strictly seventeen but that seems to be the "old" age of the sacrifices) but in order to continue their bloodline, they must first produce another daughter. So basically we start the book with Khosa's time rapidly approaching but she hasn't yet chosen the person to knock her up so she can have a daughter to send to slaughter when the time is right.
As you can tell from my tone, I didn't love this concept. I thought the overall concept of sacrificing someone to the sea was interesting but I didn't know that it would play out with all of this necessary young pregnancy and having this all forced upon her. Khosa was cursed and pardon my lack of details because I was listening to this audiobook at a rapid pace, but I can't remember if it was because of the Given's curse or because that's just the way it was, but Khosa also never touched anyone and couldn't stand another human's touch so the whole mating ritual here just seemed even more off-putting and it all just made me a little uncomfortable how much she was forced to do because someone told her she had to do it.
I also didn't really love the way the book was written. There are several different POVs, most of which didn't feel necessary. They also switch from first person to third person, so it was a little weird having Khosa and Vincent narrate their own stories and then have different narrators for the other voices too when they were in third person. The audiobook had different narrators for all five (I think it was five) voices and the switch from first to third person plus switch from narrator to narrator was just a lot. I'm used to several different narrators and that didn't bother me, but maybe that would have worked better with just one narrator for everything. Regardless, I wouldn't have enjoyed the switching of narratives either way.
There were some interesting twists in the story that came about but the pacing was just far too slow for me to stay interested. I don't need fantasies to occur at break-neck speed all the time but I felt like a lot of that could have been incorporated in some of the character dialog, or there could have been less character dialog and more world-building. It just didn't feel like a good balance and I didn't feel that character connection anyway. There was also an unnecessary love triangle... love square? There were a lot of feelings flying about and people were so tangled up. I would have rather focused more on the story and have the feelings develop along the way instead of all the jealousy and touchiness.
This cover is so gorgeous and I was excited for something unique like this but sadly this one really didn't pan out for me. I wanted so much more from it and it just seemed to fall short in so many ways.
The book is about Khosa who was born into the family line of women whose daughters are all "given to the sea" to keep the sea at peace and protect the town/land/region. Each female is given to the sea as a teenager (I don't remember if everyone is strictly seventeen but that seems to be the "old" age of the sacrifices) but in order to continue their bloodline, they must first produce another daughter. So basically we start the book with Khosa's time rapidly approaching but she hasn't yet chosen the person to knock her up so she can have a daughter to send to slaughter when the time is right.
As you can tell from my tone, I didn't love this concept. I thought the overall concept of sacrificing someone to the sea was interesting but I didn't know that it would play out with all of this necessary young pregnancy and having this all forced upon her. Khosa was cursed and pardon my lack of details because I was listening to this audiobook at a rapid pace, but I can't remember if it was because of the Given's curse or because that's just the way it was, but Khosa also never touched anyone and couldn't stand another human's touch so the whole mating ritual here just seemed even more off-putting and it all just made me a little uncomfortable how much she was forced to do because someone told her she had to do it.
I also didn't really love the way the book was written. There are several different POVs, most of which didn't feel necessary. They also switch from first person to third person, so it was a little weird having Khosa and Vincent narrate their own stories and then have different narrators for the other voices too when they were in third person. The audiobook had different narrators for all five (I think it was five) voices and the switch from first to third person plus switch from narrator to narrator was just a lot. I'm used to several different narrators and that didn't bother me, but maybe that would have worked better with just one narrator for everything. Regardless, I wouldn't have enjoyed the switching of narratives either way.
There were some interesting twists in the story that came about but the pacing was just far too slow for me to stay interested. I don't need fantasies to occur at break-neck speed all the time but I felt like a lot of that could have been incorporated in some of the character dialog, or there could have been less character dialog and more world-building. It just didn't feel like a good balance and I didn't feel that character connection anyway. There was also an unnecessary love triangle... love square? There were a lot of feelings flying about and people were so tangled up. I would have rather focused more on the story and have the feelings develop along the way instead of all the jealousy and touchiness.
This cover is so gorgeous and I was excited for something unique like this but sadly this one really didn't pan out for me. I wanted so much more from it and it just seemed to fall short in so many ways.
rsarnelli's review against another edition
Didn't get very far with this one before DNF-ing. It wasn't bad, exactly, it's just...very odd. I might try it again sometime, but I also don't know if I really care enough to try again? I have so much else to read that it might not be worth giving this one more of my time.
bookishbuddies's review against another edition
2.0
2-2,5 stars!
This review might contain some mild spoilers.
This book was very difficult to rate. I didn't hate the overall story. I quite liked that, but a lot of other things I didn't like. First of all: the chapters were too short in my opinion. There are 82 chapters over 330-ish pages, which means that the average chapter is about four pages. Now, I don't want my chapters to be overly long, but this was just too short. Every time the chapters got more interesting, the chapter was finished.
I also did not like that some chapters were writen in first person narrative ("I have done this") and some were in third person narrative ("he/she has done this"). This was super annoying. In addition to this there were four different narrators, and each chapter has a different narrator (they alternated). This in itself is not a problem, but all the voices just sounded the same. It didn't feel like I was reading four different perspectives. That being said, I just don't really get why we got chapters from Witt's perspective? I assume so we can get to know the Pietra, but it just felt kind of pointless.
I also think this book was too ambitious in terms of world and peoples. The worldbuilding was really lacking for me. I was very interested in the world and the histories, but we only got a glimpse into that. There were also so many different peoples. There are the Stilleans, and the Indiri, and the Pietra, and the Feneen, and that's just too many in such a short book.
Then, the characters. In addition to all of them sounding exactly the same, I just didn't really connect to any of them. There was also the shitstorm of a love triangle.....square? *squints* I'm not even sure. There's Dara, who loves Vincent. But Vincent loves Khosa. But Khosa loves Donil. And Donil wants everything that moves? I'm so confused. Also, everything seems to be about sex in this book. EVERYTHING.
All in all, I think this book was too ambitious. The plot was fine, but it suffered from major pacing issues. The characters were not fleshed out enough. The worldbuilding was lacking. I probably will read the second one, but I don't have too high hopes for that, unfortunately.
This review might contain some mild spoilers.
This book was very difficult to rate. I didn't hate the overall story. I quite liked that, but a lot of other things I didn't like. First of all: the chapters were too short in my opinion. There are 82 chapters over 330-ish pages, which means that the average chapter is about four pages. Now, I don't want my chapters to be overly long, but this was just too short. Every time the chapters got more interesting, the chapter was finished.
I also did not like that some chapters were writen in first person narrative ("I have done this") and some were in third person narrative ("he/she has done this"). This was super annoying. In addition to this there were four different narrators, and each chapter has a different narrator (they alternated). This in itself is not a problem, but all the voices just sounded the same. It didn't feel like I was reading four different perspectives. That being said, I just don't really get why we got chapters from Witt's perspective? I assume so we can get to know the Pietra, but it just felt kind of pointless.
I also think this book was too ambitious in terms of world and peoples. The worldbuilding was really lacking for me. I was very interested in the world and the histories, but we only got a glimpse into that. There were also so many different peoples. There are the Stilleans, and the Indiri, and the Pietra, and the Feneen, and that's just too many in such a short book.
Then, the characters. In addition to all of them sounding exactly the same, I just didn't really connect to any of them. There was also the shitstorm of a love triangle.....square? *squints* I'm not even sure. There's Dara, who loves Vincent. But Vincent loves Khosa. But Khosa loves Donil. And Donil wants everything that moves? I'm so confused. Also, everything seems to be about sex in this book. EVERYTHING.
All in all, I think this book was too ambitious. The plot was fine, but it suffered from major pacing issues. The characters were not fleshed out enough. The worldbuilding was lacking. I probably will read the second one, but I don't have too high hopes for that, unfortunately.
forsakenfates's review against another edition
2.0
I love Mindy McGinnis and her books are normally great. I think this is a case where a normally contemporary author should not write fantasy. The biggest issue I had with this book is we follow 4 different characters but the chapters are all like 5 pages long which is not long enough to actually get the character's voice and to truly know them because it is constantly switching to another story line.
CAWPILE Breakdown:
Characters: 3
Atmosphere: 2
Writing: 6
Plot: 3
Intrigue: 4
Logic: 3
Enjoyment: 4
CAWPILE Breakdown:
Characters: 3
Atmosphere: 2
Writing: 6
Plot: 3
Intrigue: 4
Logic: 3
Enjoyment: 4
joybean's review against another edition
4.0
This was a really interesting book. I liked the different perspectives of the characters and the whole idea of the story.
brandiv's review against another edition
2.0
Given to the Sea is certainly a love it or hate it type of story. Let's start with the good: Mindy McGinnis' prose is beautiful, and the story is certainly original and creative. The bad though is that there are four different POV's, with different tenses as well, so the writing eventually distracts from the story and characters. The plot was interesting at times, but I found myself skimming most of the second half of the book. The ending doesn't suggest a second book, though there is to be one. Unfortunately I don't think I'll be picking it up whenever it's released. However, McGinnis' writing is interesting enough that I still want to check out her other works.
Thank you to Penguin and their First to Read program for the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Thank you to Penguin and their First to Read program for the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.