A review by justabutterfly
The Door to the Lost by Jaleigh Johnson
2.0
Most of this book rubbed me the wrong way for whatever reason.
It's compelling, but most of the plot just felt rushed. It sets up the "here are things as they are now" part and then just sprints off into the distance. Where is the world-building? Nowhere in sight. There's a few mentions of concepts, like a disease caused by the disappearance of magic and some of the children disappearing or serving the ruling family (or whoever runs the country this takes place in), but the disease shows up for two scenes, and other children only show up near the end, and they aren't serving anyone. This really needed some more characters, since Rook and Drift (and later Fox) can't carry the story by themselves at all.
The plot twists here also felt...boring and predictable. Most of it just felt unsavory, and I didn't like where the plot was going after some of the more major events.
The characters are kind of boring here too. Fox was simple enough to be likable, but again, the two leads weren't very interesting. They were more like "the girl who flies and stuff" and "the girl who can create doors to anywhere semi-reliably but then doesn't use it for the late-middle of the book because she can't anymore" than real people.
The writing was okay, but there were a few sections where it seems off.
On the plus side, there's absolutely no romance in this book beside one scene with a husband and wife! Forced romances would have made this book much worse, so points for that.
All in all, I think I was just expecting too much of this book. It has a lot of potential, but not much of it goes anywhere, so it just feels unsatisfying. If you haven't read hundreds of fantasy books you might like this a lot, but if you're a veteran the pretty common tropes here will annoy/bore you.
It's compelling, but most of the plot just felt rushed. It sets up the "here are things as they are now" part and then just sprints off into the distance. Where is the world-building? Nowhere in sight. There's a few mentions of concepts, like a disease caused by the disappearance of magic and some of the children disappearing or serving the ruling family (or whoever runs the country this takes place in), but the disease shows up for two scenes, and other children only show up near the end, and they aren't serving anyone. This really needed some more characters, since Rook and Drift (and later Fox) can't carry the story by themselves at all.
The plot twists here also felt...boring and predictable.
Spoiler
Two main characters get kidnapped because of course they do, and we need a way to advance the plot. All of the children have amnesia because it's a convenient plot device. Zzzzzz. Fox is actually Rook's brother, and this knowledge ex machina (the magic of the place they go to lifts part of her amnesia or something! How more contrived can you get?) helps Rook make it past the final scene. This twist in particular I really don't get at all, honestly. Given how there's a foreshadowing bit in the beginning about some characters who show up in the last third, you'd think the author would've hinted a bit more at it, but aside from the fact that Fox and Rook become friends overnight there isn't much. Also, the ending to the main plot feels like it wraps up things too nicely. It feels like there should be more problems after Rook does her thing, but then it's just like "hey, you can't go back home and you still have partial amnesia but everything else is basically fixed! Lucky you!"The characters are kind of boring here too. Fox was simple enough to be likable, but again, the two leads weren't very interesting. They were more like "the girl who flies and stuff" and "the girl who can create doors to anywhere semi-reliably but then doesn't use it for the late-middle of the book because she can't anymore" than real people.
The writing was okay, but there were a few sections where it seems off.
On the plus side, there's absolutely no romance in this book beside one scene with a husband and wife! Forced romances would have made this book much worse, so points for that.
All in all, I think I was just expecting too much of this book. It has a lot of potential, but not much of it goes anywhere, so it just feels unsatisfying. If you haven't read hundreds of fantasy books you might like this a lot, but if you're a veteran the pretty common tropes here will annoy/bore you.