brans84's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
Lots of bouncing around, hard to track.
erinarkin20's review against another edition
3.0
Given to the Sea by Mindy McGinnis is a book I have been anticipating since I heard about it. I loved McGinnis’ other books and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this one since it falls into my favorite genre, Fantasy.
This story has multiple POVs and I admit, at first the book felt really choppy as we were jumping from one POV to the next and the chapters were fairly short. The Witt chapters were the ones that made things feel off for me and I suppose it is because the other characters are with each other. With that said, once the story picked up for me, it didn’t seem as distracting.
The world that McGinnis has created is interesting. The Kingdom of Stille has always had a Given who dances into the sea and the belief is that she is what prevents a wave from destroying the kingdom like it did before. Khosa is the Given and was expected to be ready to go by now but before she can, she has to have an heir. The problem for her is that she can’t stand the touch of any other human and now things are at a point where she may not get a choice about what happens. Even though she struggles with human touch, there is one person she is drawn to.
Vince is the third in line for the throne and when Khosa shows up at the castle, he can’t help but be drawn to her even if she is destined to die. As time progresses, Vince does what he can to protect her but his father has made it very difficult for him. He is willing to give up everything to protect Khosa but when the plan goes awry, things change for both of them.
Donil and Dara grew up with Vince but they are considered outsiders by most of Stille. They are Indiri, a race connected to the earth, and they possess magic. While Donil aligns to life, Dara aligns to death and while these attributes help them, they also cause some problems. When Vince and Khosa learn more about them and their magic, things change for all of them.Vince (and his mother) has always considered Donil and Dara family and they are all pretty close but when Khosa arrives, things shift a bit for them.
Let’s talk about feelings for a moment. Dara has always felt something for Vince and now she sees that Khosa has drawn Vince’s attention. This has created some definite tension between Dara and Khosa and it eventually comes to a head. Remember when I said that Khosa is drawn to someone…well that happens to be Donil. There is something about Donil that allows Khosa to touch him without flinching or drawing back. So…now we have Dara loves Vince, Vince loves Khosa, and Khosa has feelings for Donil. We do get to see how things end up for this group by the end of the book but I am curious to see where McGinnis will take this in the next book.
Outside of these relationships, there is another vein to this story and that ties back to Witt’s chapters. He leads the Pietra and they are driven to get more land so that his people can survive. Because of this, a war is coming to Stille and they are in no way prepared to fight such a strong army. Add to that, the agreement Witt makes with Ank, the leader of the Feneen, and they really have no chance considering how much they lost the last time they faced the Feneen. I’m looking forward to how this agreement plays out in the next book as things didn’t necessarily work out as planned for the group in this book.
Overall I found this one interesting. It felt like a departure from everything else McGinnis has written (which I have loved) but that isn’t a bad thing. My best recommendation is to not go into this with any pre-conceived notions about what this book will be about. As with her other books, McGinnis does a wonderful job of creating the world and developing the characters, but that is where the comparisons end. While this wasn’t my favorite book by McGinnis, I still thought the story was solid and am looking forward to the next book to see what happens next for these characters.
This story has multiple POVs and I admit, at first the book felt really choppy as we were jumping from one POV to the next and the chapters were fairly short. The Witt chapters were the ones that made things feel off for me and I suppose it is because the other characters are with each other. With that said, once the story picked up for me, it didn’t seem as distracting.
The world that McGinnis has created is interesting. The Kingdom of Stille has always had a Given who dances into the sea and the belief is that she is what prevents a wave from destroying the kingdom like it did before. Khosa is the Given and was expected to be ready to go by now but before she can, she has to have an heir. The problem for her is that she can’t stand the touch of any other human and now things are at a point where she may not get a choice about what happens. Even though she struggles with human touch, there is one person she is drawn to.
Vince is the third in line for the throne and when Khosa shows up at the castle, he can’t help but be drawn to her even if she is destined to die. As time progresses, Vince does what he can to protect her but his father has made it very difficult for him. He is willing to give up everything to protect Khosa but when the plan goes awry, things change for both of them.
Donil and Dara grew up with Vince but they are considered outsiders by most of Stille. They are Indiri, a race connected to the earth, and they possess magic. While Donil aligns to life, Dara aligns to death and while these attributes help them, they also cause some problems. When Vince and Khosa learn more about them and their magic, things change for all of them.Vince (and his mother) has always considered Donil and Dara family and they are all pretty close but when Khosa arrives, things shift a bit for them.
Let’s talk about feelings for a moment. Dara has always felt something for Vince and now she sees that Khosa has drawn Vince’s attention. This has created some definite tension between Dara and Khosa and it eventually comes to a head. Remember when I said that Khosa is drawn to someone…well that happens to be Donil. There is something about Donil that allows Khosa to touch him without flinching or drawing back. So…now we have Dara loves Vince, Vince loves Khosa, and Khosa has feelings for Donil. We do get to see how things end up for this group by the end of the book but I am curious to see where McGinnis will take this in the next book.
Outside of these relationships, there is another vein to this story and that ties back to Witt’s chapters. He leads the Pietra and they are driven to get more land so that his people can survive. Because of this, a war is coming to Stille and they are in no way prepared to fight such a strong army. Add to that, the agreement Witt makes with Ank, the leader of the Feneen, and they really have no chance considering how much they lost the last time they faced the Feneen. I’m looking forward to how this agreement plays out in the next book as things didn’t necessarily work out as planned for the group in this book.
Overall I found this one interesting. It felt like a departure from everything else McGinnis has written (which I have loved) but that isn’t a bad thing. My best recommendation is to not go into this with any pre-conceived notions about what this book will be about. As with her other books, McGinnis does a wonderful job of creating the world and developing the characters, but that is where the comparisons end. While this wasn’t my favorite book by McGinnis, I still thought the story was solid and am looking forward to the next book to see what happens next for these characters.
vivianne's review against another edition
1.0
DNF (on page 63)!
Spoiler free review!
So this was my first Fairyloot book, April 2017. And unfortunately it wasn’t very successful.
Well I tried. Several times even. But I just have to give this up, it’s just not for me.
The concept was interesting but I don’t think that I would have bought this book on my own. I didn’t like the story of Kosha, the fact that she is solely born to have sex, birth a daughter and die had me really in conflict with my morels. And for everyone to just be okay with her faith? The fact that the sea had some kind of special power of drawing girls (and let them do this weird dance), needing sacrificing otherwise it would rebel had me a little hm.. not sure I will like this. And yeah I’m so sorry to say this but I hated it.
The beginning of this book was just awful. The characters needed way more introduction. I was quite confused who was what and lived where and was from what clan. The language used didn’t really draw me in and the concept was kind of mehh. But it was interesting of some sorts, some terms really got me fascinated about the world and that made me continue reading, at least till page 63…
Generally I’m a big fan of short chapters. But here it just didn’t work. There are four main characters, that get like 3-5 pages in turn and then another character is already swooped in and after that those had like a short introduction, another chapter of another character is already started. I didn’t have time to figure out their personality or to connect with them. And I really need that to understand and like a story. When I’m on 20% of a book I want to at least have an idea of what an character is like.
The way the chapters flow into each other was not smooth enough. I want it to be fluent, solid and logical, and that was not the case here. For example in the beginning this feast is thrown for the Given, that’s told from Khosa’s POV for like 4 pages. Then the sister of Vincent walks in and we switch to Vincent’s POV for like 5 pages, but before the scene picks up again there are first a few pages dedicated about what Vincent thinks of Khosa. So after this we finally pick up (only for one page) and Dara walks in and speaks but then we already switch to Dara’s POV and the scene is over. AHHHHH that’s so frustrating to read. All these different opinions and views make the story are so unclear and illogical. It’s just a mess… I didn’t get anything from that scene because there are so many unnecessary words and opinions. It’s not necessary to tell one scene from 3 POV’s.
But something that really put me off in this book was the writing style. I’ve never read such an awful sentence composition in a book. There are lines in here that I read 10 times and still don’t understand. It was like a try at old English with a sparkle of self-fabricated slang. And it just didn’t work. But also some sentences are super weird that I’m like who in their right mind would come up with this.. I will give you an example of this:
Like what?! WHAT THE HELL!? Is this just me or would no one ever do this in the whole damn world? That’s the most nasty thing ever. Is she just going to sit there like that the rest of the evening? And there were literally so much more things like this, that I had question marks with.
Another writing style thing; it was just not descriptive enough, and normally I really like that but when you introduce this whole fantasy world to me it needs some words about the surrounding. The world building was just not existing in the first 63 pages and a story like this REALLY needs that. I have no idea how Stille looks, no idea if it’s an Island or a coast place, it was a kingdom right? So why isn’t there spoken of different cities or even of cities? What kind of creatures do live there? How many people? Why are the pitrans enemies? Is there a lot of beach or forest? But I also had no idea how the main characters looked and that I hated most.
Plot wise it was even more a mess. It started to quick, like I noted before it needed more character introduction and more world building. The second chapter of Kosha (so page 15) hell already broke lose. Well I can say that but I actually had no idea what was happening?! It was just so strange and illogical and weird. Half the freaking time I had no clue what was going on and what someone’s motivation was.
So after several tries I just have to give up on Given to the Sea. Maybe I will give this book a second change in the future, so I will also put it on my ‘setting aside for now’ shelve for now.
“A good person does not necessarily make a good king.”
Spoiler free review!
So this was my first Fairyloot book, April 2017. And unfortunately it wasn’t very successful.
Well I tried. Several times even. But I just have to give this up, it’s just not for me.
The concept was interesting but I don’t think that I would have bought this book on my own. I didn’t like the story of Kosha, the fact that she is solely born to have sex, birth a daughter and die had me really in conflict with my morels. And for everyone to just be okay with her faith? The fact that the sea had some kind of special power of drawing girls (and let them do this weird dance), needing sacrificing otherwise it would rebel had me a little hm.. not sure I will like this. And yeah I’m so sorry to say this but I hated it.
The beginning of this book was just awful. The characters needed way more introduction. I was quite confused who was what and lived where and was from what clan. The language used didn’t really draw me in and the concept was kind of mehh. But it was interesting of some sorts, some terms really got me fascinated about the world and that made me continue reading, at least till page 63…
Generally I’m a big fan of short chapters. But here it just didn’t work. There are four main characters, that get like 3-5 pages in turn and then another character is already swooped in and after that those had like a short introduction, another chapter of another character is already started. I didn’t have time to figure out their personality or to connect with them. And I really need that to understand and like a story. When I’m on 20% of a book I want to at least have an idea of what an character is like.
The way the chapters flow into each other was not smooth enough. I want it to be fluent, solid and logical, and that was not the case here. For example in the beginning this feast is thrown for the Given, that’s told from Khosa’s POV for like 4 pages. Then the sister of Vincent walks in and we switch to Vincent’s POV for like 5 pages, but before the scene picks up again there are first a few pages dedicated about what Vincent thinks of Khosa. So after this we finally pick up (only for one page) and Dara walks in and speaks but then we already switch to Dara’s POV and the scene is over. AHHHHH that’s so frustrating to read. All these different opinions and views make the story are so unclear and illogical. It’s just a mess… I didn’t get anything from that scene because there are so many unnecessary words and opinions. It’s not necessary to tell one scene from 3 POV’s.
But something that really put me off in this book was the writing style. I’ve never read such an awful sentence composition in a book. There are lines in here that I read 10 times and still don’t understand. It was like a try at old English with a sparkle of self-fabricated slang. And it just didn’t work. But also some sentences are super weird that I’m like who in their right mind would come up with this.. I will give you an example of this:
“The smell hit me, and I gag. To my right, my father does the same, though he hides it better. A few of the court ladies swoon; one of them vomits into her lap and then tidily closes her knees so that the skirts pocket the mess.”
Like what?! WHAT THE HELL!? Is this just me or would no one ever do this in the whole damn world? That’s the most nasty thing ever. Is she just going to sit there like that the rest of the evening? And there were literally so much more things like this, that I had question marks with.
Another writing style thing; it was just not descriptive enough, and normally I really like that but when you introduce this whole fantasy world to me it needs some words about the surrounding. The world building was just not existing in the first 63 pages and a story like this REALLY needs that. I have no idea how Stille looks, no idea if it’s an Island or a coast place, it was a kingdom right? So why isn’t there spoken of different cities or even of cities? What kind of creatures do live there? How many people? Why are the pitrans enemies? Is there a lot of beach or forest? But I also had no idea how the main characters looked and that I hated most.
Plot wise it was even more a mess. It started to quick, like I noted before it needed more character introduction and more world building. The second chapter of Kosha (so page 15) hell already broke lose. Well I can say that but I actually had no idea what was happening?! It was just so strange and illogical and weird. Half the freaking time I had no clue what was going on and what someone’s motivation was.
So after several tries I just have to give up on Given to the Sea. Maybe I will give this book a second change in the future, so I will also put it on my ‘setting aside for now’ shelve for now.
bookwife's review against another edition
2.0
SPOILERS
I mean.. I dunno. I went into it with a negative attitude.. And honestly it wasn't good.. it wasn't good at all. I was still entertained though.. I don't see how the author is going to end that love square thing happily. At least not in my eyes. She can't somehow have Dara with Vincent because he chose Khosa.. It would make Dara look like she came in second and that would be shitty. Even though I HATED Dara. Its a freaking mess.
I mean.. I dunno. I went into it with a negative attitude.. And honestly it wasn't good.. it wasn't good at all. I was still entertained though.. I don't see how the author is going to end that love square thing happily. At least not in my eyes. She can't somehow have Dara with Vincent because he chose Khosa.. It would make Dara look like she came in second and that would be shitty. Even though I HATED Dara. Its a freaking mess.
phoebe_books's review against another edition
1.0
*NO SPOILERS* I was very disappointed in this book as the premise had potential. However, it is very underdeveloped; the characters, the world and the plot. You are thrown headfirst into the plot with multiple POVs with no character development or world-building first. This, when combined with an underdeveloped plot, means that the readers get to around the 100-page mark and realises that they still have absolutely no idea what's going on. It's a fantasy world but I couldn't tell you how the world works and I couldn't describe the characters to you either.
marineb09's review against another edition
3.0
I had this book for quite some time now and I am really glad I picked it up.
It's not the best fantasy I read let's be honest but it wasn't"t as bad as I thought ... I read a lot of bad reviews about it and let's face it I may have liked this one because of my catastrophic last read haha
The plot is interesting, the writing as well ... I didn't get some parts but it's okay.
I am really excited for book 2 now that everything is set into motion.
It's not the best fantasy I read let's be honest but it wasn't"t as bad as I thought ... I read a lot of bad reviews about it and let's face it I may have liked this one because of my catastrophic last read haha
The plot is interesting, the writing as well ... I didn't get some parts but it's okay.
I am really excited for book 2 now that everything is set into motion.
lpcoolgirl's review against another edition
5.0
This was such a great read, loved the world, loved the characters, and now I must finish out this series!
deduvick's review against another edition
3.0
I'm always excited to check out new work from Mindy McGinnis! This story blends four narratives to tell the story of a girl doomed to be "given to the sea," as a sacrifice for her kingdom. While I enjoyed hearing from the various characters, I don't know that I got to know any of them very well. I'm interested in seeing what happens in the next book, so will probably continue the series. But I felt a disconnect from the characters, some disinterest in certain events (though there were some surprising twists and turns!), and some dissatisfaction with how this particular book wrapped up. But it has a gorgeous cover and some creative world-building and I think the second book has potential to be even better!
_kjmac_'s review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
1.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape
Moderate: Racism, War, and Vomit
burstnwithbooks's review against another edition
4.0
I did quite enjoy this, but I'm not sure whether I'm invested enough to finish the duology. I really like Mindy McGinnis's writing, and I love her ability to jump genres with literally everything she writes. I'll definitely check out more from her.