Wednesday, April 1, 2020

EmberhawkEmberhawk by Jamie Foley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

“Kira refuses to marry a guy who was dumber than a sack of rocks. Of which there were plenty.”

So, I went into Emberhawk with no previous expectations. I was craving a unique YA fantasy, and in some ways this hit that sweet spot.

I’m quite conflicted, because I feel like there were a number of things that were well done, and then others not so much. We follow our main characters, Kira and Ryon who are living in this dangerous world full of magic on the brink of war. Kira is setting her traps and catches Ryon on her property stealing her families chickens. So of course she doesn’t hesitate to shoot him in the shoulder, thinking he’s a trace cat, and then no surprise insta-love follows.

Without delving too much into this, the romance really didn’t click with me, specifically because of one scene where Ryon forced himself on her without consent and then spent about 10 pages justifying it. After that, all out their romantic interactions and flirtations left a sour taste in my mouth.

For me the highlight of this book was Kira. It was a delight seeing this complex complicated (often confusing) world that was against her. She’s a feminist badass, without the author trying too hard to make that obvious. The only thing that stuck out like a sore thumb to me, was that because of her situation and family we see virtually no other females interacting with her? Like for example she has two brothers, but I wanted to know more about her everyday—where she went to school, what type of friends she had,etc.

If I’m being honest, I struggled for more than half the book to understand how exactly the magic system works. Yes, there was a lot of infodumping from the author as it’s to be expected with the introduction to a high fantasy series. However, I wish some things were explained more clearly earlier on; that way I feel like I would have gotten an overall more enjoyable experience. That being said, I will definitely keep my eye out of the sequel and put it high up on my tbr because this book was an intriguing start.

3.5/5 stars

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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