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cynsworkshop's review against another edition
2.0
Review of ‘The Channeler’ (Continuum Series, #1)
Originally reviewed on Cyn's Workshop
Oh, where to begin. The biggest problem with the novel is how predictable and cliché it is. It is not a poorly written story, and with an influential synopsis it comes off as exciting, especially after a strong opening chapter. However, after a point, it just seems very easy for the main character, everything falls into place with Caleb which makes the novel slightly unrelatable. His flaws are not pronounced enough; in fact, his faults are not pronounced at all really which makes him a sort of Mary Sue character.
The fact that everything falls into place with him makes the novel annoying and predictable. There is no real way to develop this review without going into spoilers so stop reading now to avoid spoilers.
Caleb has visions, which is excellent; it makes him unique and sets up an exciting premise. It is great actually. However, then he meets Darla, the girl from his visions. It turns out she has some ESP abilities as well. Not only that, it turns out that she is his long-lost twin sister. Not only that but her godfather used to date his godmother, knows his dad who has never been there his entire life, and they are all part of this subrace of people descendant of “angels.” It was just a lot of clichés, many coincidences, leading the novel into a predictable premise that did not leave much room for imagination for the readers and it ultimately makes the novel boring because it is not like these are all spaced out, they are mashed together into two chapters.
Ultimately it would have worked out better if the author and the editor had decided to space out all of this to spread out the tension and pace of the novel because it ultimately falls flat. Cramming that much into the book all at once it does not leave much room for tension to rise, for dynamics to bloom, or for the reader to be entertained. It is hard to be delighted when something is so incredibly predictable.
It is always disheartening to read a novel and not enjoy it, to try so hard to find something worthwhile to say but with The Channeler, unfortunately, there was not much [for me] to enjoy. (★★☆☆☆)
See more reviews at Cyn's Workshop and follow me on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Tumblr | | Goodreads+ | LinkedIn
Originally reviewed on Cyn's Workshop
Oh, where to begin. The biggest problem with the novel is how predictable and cliché it is. It is not a poorly written story, and with an influential synopsis it comes off as exciting, especially after a strong opening chapter. However, after a point, it just seems very easy for the main character, everything falls into place with Caleb which makes the novel slightly unrelatable. His flaws are not pronounced enough; in fact, his faults are not pronounced at all really which makes him a sort of Mary Sue character.
The fact that everything falls into place with him makes the novel annoying and predictable. There is no real way to develop this review without going into spoilers so stop reading now to avoid spoilers.
Caleb has visions, which is excellent; it makes him unique and sets up an exciting premise. It is great actually. However, then he meets Darla, the girl from his visions. It turns out she has some ESP abilities as well. Not only that, it turns out that she is his long-lost twin sister. Not only that but her godfather used to date his godmother, knows his dad who has never been there his entire life, and they are all part of this subrace of people descendant of “angels.” It was just a lot of clichés, many coincidences, leading the novel into a predictable premise that did not leave much room for imagination for the readers and it ultimately makes the novel boring because it is not like these are all spaced out, they are mashed together into two chapters.
Ultimately it would have worked out better if the author and the editor had decided to space out all of this to spread out the tension and pace of the novel because it ultimately falls flat. Cramming that much into the book all at once it does not leave much room for tension to rise, for dynamics to bloom, or for the reader to be entertained. It is hard to be delighted when something is so incredibly predictable.
It is always disheartening to read a novel and not enjoy it, to try so hard to find something worthwhile to say but with The Channeler, unfortunately, there was not much [for me] to enjoy. (★★☆☆☆)
See more reviews at Cyn's Workshop and follow me on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Tumblr | | Goodreads+ | LinkedIn
barelybookish's review against another edition
3.0
Let's start with the good. First, it's a relatively fast read, which I always love getting the chance to enjoy. Also, I think the characters are all incredibly nice and loveable. These characters are people I could see myself getting along with.
I will say though, I had a couple of problems with this book. Mainly, it felt a bit cliché for me. The delivery of some of the lines felt a bit forced and unnatural which added to the feeling of this being a bit cliché and nothing really happens for most of the book. I also feel like the university setting was strange because the university felt like a high school, with designated lunch, assigned seating, and so on. They also went to a sorority house party and everyone got pat-down for drugs and their IDs checked, which felt sort of odd to me and it really took me out of the story.
I also thought the not really calling them angels but implying that they were angels was strange. Especially when choosing names such as Michael and Gabriel which have a lot of biblical significance. It felt like that wasn't explored enough to me.
Overall though, I rated this a 3/5. I think this would be a really fun story but I may have not been the right reader for it.
I will say though, I had a couple of problems with this book. Mainly, it felt a bit cliché for me. The delivery of some of the lines felt a bit forced and unnatural which added to the feeling of this being a bit cliché and nothing really happens for most of the book. I also feel like the university setting was strange because the university felt like a high school, with designated lunch, assigned seating, and so on. They also went to a sorority house party and everyone got pat-down for drugs and their IDs checked, which felt sort of odd to me and it really took me out of the story.
I also thought the not really calling them angels but implying that they were angels was strange. Especially when choosing names such as Michael and Gabriel which have a lot of biblical significance. It felt like that wasn't explored enough to me.
Overall though, I rated this a 3/5. I think this would be a really fun story but I may have not been the right reader for it.
dokipreee's review against another edition
3.0
Click here for the original post at Bookmarked
ARC provided in exchange for review
The Channeler is the first of the Continuum series, an urban YA fantasy by Jenna Ryan.
In the average town of Divinity, North Carolina, not-so-average Caleb is struggling with seeing cryptic visions of horrific events. Though these visions aren’t new to him, they steadily become more and more frequent, taking a serious toll on his physical and mental well being. Though Caleb does his best to just be a normal kid and make it through college, weird things keep happening around him. A strange winged man appears and is only visible to him, he discovers a heartbreaking secret about his recently deceased mother and absent father, and the new girl at school has a connection to him that he could not anticipate.
This was a well needed palate cleanser from all the heavy, grimdark, epic fantasy I’d been indulging in recently. Sitting squarely in the YA category, it was honestly jarring to switch into a decidedly simpler use of language, and ultimately had a bit of a negative impact on my reading experience. This isn’t to say that Ryan’s use of language is bad - I actually really enjoyed how easy it was to learn the characters and context. My one criticism here would be the use of first person perspective. Don’t get me wrong - first person is definitely not the easiest perspective to pull off, but I think the chosen perspective resulted in some stylistic choices that weren’t quite my taste.
Firstly, the book is incredibly dialogue heavy. As Caleb and his friends learn more about his abilities, the novel seems to detail the discoveries through dialogue more often than not, and this results in a lot of “telling not showing". There was not a lot of time for the reader to speculate, or make any discoveries of their own. As a result, the narrative felt a bit flat, and this is an unfortunate restriction of the first person perspective.
Secondly, and before I even get into this, this is again a matter of personal preference - I don’t like when characters are particularly verbose about descriptions, especially when describing themselves. Having a character refer to their own eyes as “electric blue" just feels a bit awkward to me. Additionally, there are moments when the author attempts to describe scenes through the narrator’s first person perspective in a way that was contradictory to how I perceived his character. I don’t expect newly post-adolescent boys to have a deep appreciation for the neatly kept garden outside their school, especially when they had never expressed an interest in horticulture…
But these things aside, I was impressed by the depth of the lore and the breadth of the world, magic and history that are the foundations of this book. I love Christian mythology and think that Ryan put a really fun spin on the whole ‘angels and demons’ thing. Without ruining too much, it’s obvious that this first novel of the series only scratches the surface of what will undoubtedly be an adventure of epic proportions. Cassandra Claire fans will dig this one
ARC provided in exchange for review
The Channeler is the first of the Continuum series, an urban YA fantasy by Jenna Ryan.
In the average town of Divinity, North Carolina, not-so-average Caleb is struggling with seeing cryptic visions of horrific events. Though these visions aren’t new to him, they steadily become more and more frequent, taking a serious toll on his physical and mental well being. Though Caleb does his best to just be a normal kid and make it through college, weird things keep happening around him. A strange winged man appears and is only visible to him, he discovers a heartbreaking secret about his recently deceased mother and absent father, and the new girl at school has a connection to him that he could not anticipate.
This was a well needed palate cleanser from all the heavy, grimdark, epic fantasy I’d been indulging in recently. Sitting squarely in the YA category, it was honestly jarring to switch into a decidedly simpler use of language, and ultimately had a bit of a negative impact on my reading experience. This isn’t to say that Ryan’s use of language is bad - I actually really enjoyed how easy it was to learn the characters and context. My one criticism here would be the use of first person perspective. Don’t get me wrong - first person is definitely not the easiest perspective to pull off, but I think the chosen perspective resulted in some stylistic choices that weren’t quite my taste.
Firstly, the book is incredibly dialogue heavy. As Caleb and his friends learn more about his abilities, the novel seems to detail the discoveries through dialogue more often than not, and this results in a lot of “telling not showing". There was not a lot of time for the reader to speculate, or make any discoveries of their own. As a result, the narrative felt a bit flat, and this is an unfortunate restriction of the first person perspective.
Secondly, and before I even get into this, this is again a matter of personal preference - I don’t like when characters are particularly verbose about descriptions, especially when describing themselves. Having a character refer to their own eyes as “electric blue" just feels a bit awkward to me. Additionally, there are moments when the author attempts to describe scenes through the narrator’s first person perspective in a way that was contradictory to how I perceived his character. I don’t expect newly post-adolescent boys to have a deep appreciation for the neatly kept garden outside their school, especially when they had never expressed an interest in horticulture…
But these things aside, I was impressed by the depth of the lore and the breadth of the world, magic and history that are the foundations of this book. I love Christian mythology and think that Ryan put a really fun spin on the whole ‘angels and demons’ thing. Without ruining too much, it’s obvious that this first novel of the series only scratches the surface of what will undoubtedly be an adventure of epic proportions. Cassandra Claire fans will dig this one
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