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A review by robotnik
Realm Breaker by Victoria Aveyard
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.0
The world building is... subpar to say the least. The Spindles were an interesting concept. Not entirely unique, seeing as high fantasies with portals and multiple worlds are a dime a dozen, but the way the Spindles existed was an interesting take on them. The problem was, Aveyard seemed to put all the effort into world building into these Spindles because the rest of the world seemed sparsely populated and half-baked. We're thrown a bunch of names and locations, as if they're meant to mean something to us without anything to really make them feel like real places. One of the things that makes high fantasy such an interesting genre is being able to feel like the world is capable of existing beyond the story being told, and that just isn't here. The descriptions we are given are vague and generic, like some place being a nation of raiders and pirates, or one city being dedicated to criminals - both very common places in high fantasy.
The plot was a typical ragtag bunch of misfits band together and adventure to save the world from evil. Fair, that's common and has been made into some amazing stories over the years. But this was just so boring. It takes the majority of the book to get everyone together. The first half of the book was unnecessarily long and boring with barely a thing happening. Most of the "plot twists" were fairly predictable and the major scenes were underwhelming, including the climax. Honestly? You can cut out 250-300 pages of this book and it would be a better story.
I didn't care for any of the characters, and something I will stand by is you could cut out half the points of view, just let them be supporting characters, and probably make the story better as they didn't add anything that was actually needed to carry the narrative. And honestly, having so many points of view in one adventuring party where they're all traveling together for the most part just leads to a lot of unneeded filler and makes the storytelling more muddled.
All the characters were fairly generic stereotypes of very commonly done high fantasy characters and not one of them done any better than an average attempt at them. They do not stand out. The attempts to make them interesting makes them grating and annoying. Really, they're essentially Baby's First D&D Party.
Corayne is the daughter of rogue (in this case, her mother's a pirate) who never knew her father. She wants to follow in her mother's footsteps. Mommy says no. Corayne learns that her father was actually of special lineage(tm) and sneaks away from home to fulfill her chosen one destiny. She lacks a personality as being the hero of the story is her entire personality.
Dom-whatever his full name is an elf. Call them elders all you want, they function as elves. Good fighter, doesn't understand the silly mortals' cultures and is played for laughs how foreign he is to their ways.
Sorasa is an edgy assassin. She's just every other edgy assassin to exist, but more annoying.
Andry is the common-born squire who was raised near the queen so has access to the nobility and he just wants to be a good boy and do what's right for the realm because he loves his mom or something.
Valtik is the quirky magical one whose entire character exists to make you want to throw the book in the fire.
Charlie is the former priest turned criminal.
Sigil and her dumb ass name is the big brutish bounty hunter who's hunting one of the party.
Erida is not in the party but she's the young queen who's shitty country doesn't respect her enough cause she's female so she turns to evil because she's power hungry and wants to conquer shit. Probably the most interesting out of all of them but not by much.
Ridha is Dom's not-elf cousin and should not have any role in this story. I don't care if she becomes important later. She added absolutely zero content to this novel and did absolutely nothing to advance its story and be interesting. All she did was add to the page count with her two stupid chapters.
I'm pretty sure I wrote all these characters as a twelve-year-old at some point.
I just got nothing. I guess it's a "to each their own" sort of situation and maybe people will like it more than I did. Maybe if high fantasy isn't something that you read as much like I do and have seen literally everything in this book done 100x times better, it might interest you more. All I know is this is a not recommended for me.