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A review by chromeorange
Free the Darkness by Kel Kade
1.0
This book is awful. Absolutely awful. How it currently has a 4.2 on here is beyond me.
PROTAGONIST/STORY
Calling the protagonist a Mary Sue is an understatement. He (an assassin named Rezkin) serves solely as wish fulfillment for the author. He is the most handsome person in the kingdom. He is the most polite person in the kingdom. He is the most skilled warrior in the kingdom. He is (seemingly) the smartest person in the kingdom. He never makes any mistakes and is never once in any danger from anyone, ever. He does whatever he wants. That's basically the book; him doing whatever he wants. There is no real plot because there is never any conflict. There are no antagonists because there can't be. Rezkin is invincible, omniscient, and perfect. Oh, and somehow he knows quite nearly everything there is to know, and has mastered every skill there is, by age 19. His mysterious training repeatedly serves as a convenient Deus Ex Machina. (How does he know where everything is even though he never left the fort he trained in? Oh...uh....he memorized all the blue prints of every major building as part of his training.) It's eye-rollingly ridiculous.
OTHER CHARACTERS
Even calling them characters is laughable. Others serve only as a mouthpiece for the author's groveling over her own protagonist. They serve no purpose of their own but to fawn over him. Every single female he encounters in the book instantly becomes obsessed with him. Every man he encounters adores him. They have no purpose, goals, or stories of their own except to show us how much Rezkin amazes everyone. He supposedly wants to marry one character, but we're never given a single reason why. Despite claims of her "independence" sometimes, she shows none and, again, has zero personality of her own, aside from worshipping the protagonist (whom she barely knows). I would say the author's shallow, dependent nature of her female characters is a disservice to women, but that's actually how she portrays all her characters, male and female, so I guess it's not really sexist (?).
PROSE
While the flow of the prose is okay, the author has a series of phrases/entreaties she uses over, and over, and over, and over to describe things and they get annoying real quick. Here are a few:
Rezkin cocked his head
Rezkin was surprised how people don't follow the numbered rules
Rezkin was surprised that people don't have more 'skills' like he does
XYZ girl blushes deep red
Rezkin resisted his instincts to protect himself against XYZ innocuous event
Something about Rezkin's eyes, body, grace, politeness, etc.
It's hard to comprehend how annoying it is to hear the same thing dozens of times in a book until you're reading it yourself. It's bad, though, trust me, and it shows a huge lack of vocabulary on the part of the author.
Also, while I listened to the audio book version (the reader was actually amazing), I heard from others that there were a not-insignificant number of typos, bad grammar, and misspellings in the book. Welcome to the world of self-publishing, I guess.
THE END
The book ends abruptly - to where it feels like it's just another chapter. Absolutely nothing is revealed in this book about anything. While there is no real plot (as stated earlier) and thus nothing to really "resolve," there are a number of unexplained mysteries...and they are all still mysteries at the end. Even Rezkin's name, which the author hints at multiple times as having a special meaning, isn't explained. I'm beginning to think the author doesn't know the answer to any of these things, either.
This book is only "fantasy" in the sense that it's a romantic, YA-style fantasy of the author's imagination. It's not a story at all and largely reads like it was written by a 13 year-old.
PROTAGONIST/STORY
Calling the protagonist a Mary Sue is an understatement. He (an assassin named Rezkin) serves solely as wish fulfillment for the author. He is the most handsome person in the kingdom. He is the most polite person in the kingdom. He is the most skilled warrior in the kingdom. He is (seemingly) the smartest person in the kingdom. He never makes any mistakes and is never once in any danger from anyone, ever. He does whatever he wants. That's basically the book; him doing whatever he wants. There is no real plot because there is never any conflict. There are no antagonists because there can't be. Rezkin is invincible, omniscient, and perfect. Oh, and somehow he knows quite nearly everything there is to know, and has mastered every skill there is, by age 19. His mysterious training repeatedly serves as a convenient Deus Ex Machina. (How does he know where everything is even though he never left the fort he trained in? Oh...uh....he memorized all the blue prints of every major building as part of his training.) It's eye-rollingly ridiculous.
OTHER CHARACTERS
Even calling them characters is laughable. Others serve only as a mouthpiece for the author's groveling over her own protagonist. They serve no purpose of their own but to fawn over him. Every single female he encounters in the book instantly becomes obsessed with him. Every man he encounters adores him. They have no purpose, goals, or stories of their own except to show us how much Rezkin amazes everyone. He supposedly wants to marry one character, but we're never given a single reason why. Despite claims of her "independence" sometimes, she shows none and, again, has zero personality of her own, aside from worshipping the protagonist (whom she barely knows). I would say the author's shallow, dependent nature of her female characters is a disservice to women, but that's actually how she portrays all her characters, male and female, so I guess it's not really sexist (?).
PROSE
While the flow of the prose is okay, the author has a series of phrases/entreaties she uses over, and over, and over, and over to describe things and they get annoying real quick. Here are a few:
Rezkin cocked his head
Rezkin was surprised how people don't follow the numbered rules
Rezkin was surprised that people don't have more 'skills' like he does
XYZ girl blushes deep red
Rezkin resisted his instincts to protect himself against XYZ innocuous event
Something about Rezkin's eyes, body, grace, politeness, etc.
It's hard to comprehend how annoying it is to hear the same thing dozens of times in a book until you're reading it yourself. It's bad, though, trust me, and it shows a huge lack of vocabulary on the part of the author.
Also, while I listened to the audio book version (the reader was actually amazing), I heard from others that there were a not-insignificant number of typos, bad grammar, and misspellings in the book. Welcome to the world of self-publishing, I guess.
THE END
The book ends abruptly - to where it feels like it's just another chapter. Absolutely nothing is revealed in this book about anything. While there is no real plot (as stated earlier) and thus nothing to really "resolve," there are a number of unexplained mysteries...and they are all still mysteries at the end. Even Rezkin's name, which the author hints at multiple times as having a special meaning, isn't explained. I'm beginning to think the author doesn't know the answer to any of these things, either.
This book is only "fantasy" in the sense that it's a romantic, YA-style fantasy of the author's imagination. It's not a story at all and largely reads like it was written by a 13 year-old.