Title: The Storm Crow
Author: Kalyn Josephson
Series: "The Storm Crow" #1
Genre: YA Fantasy
Page Length: 352 pages
Publication Date: July 9, 2019
Rating: 4.5 // 5 stars
Goodreads
I'm honestly surprised that I didn't pick this up sooner because I ended up loving it! I got an ARC in my Fairyloot box all the way back in December of 2019 and just hadn't figured out when to read it. Then 2020 hit and I figured I would just wait until the sequel came out so that I didn't have to wait long between books. Well, I got an ARC of the second book and figured it was about time for me to read this one!
This, to me, is the epitome of a great YA fantasy book. I've read a lot of high fantasy YA novels that are super intricate in their world building and magic systems with lots of dense passages and lots of information thrown are way. And don't get me wrong, I do enjoy a dense high fantasy. But I also like a YA fantasy that doesn't throw too much information at you. It seemed to me that the author gave us exactly the right amount of information to understand the world, conflicts, and magic system as we needed.
That being said, I am fascinated by this world. I want to know more about each of the different kingdoms and I especially want to know more about the magic systems at play. I think the idea of the crows is so unique and there's so much room to learn more about them. I'm just overall so interested in exploring this world and the magic systems within it in book two!
This was also a pretty fast-paced book. It's not super long and that felt like a breath of fresh air as well. I do like long books but they can be exhausting at times. I felt that the story moved at a good pace and didn't drag at all. I also just really liked Kalyn's writing style and I found it easy to fall into. I ended up reading most of this book in one sitting and not even realizing the passage of time.
I will say that I've read so many fantasy stories centered around rebellion and "taking back the throne" trope so that didn't feel unique to me but what made me love this book was the characters, the plot, the world, etc. The author took a pretty common trope but has made everything else in the book enjoyable and unique.
Speaking of characters, I really enjoyed the ones in this book. We have our main character with the only POV, Anthia, but we also have multiple side characters who occupy a lot of page time. I loved our main character but I also really loved the side characters. Each one felt developed and unique from the rest--I am very interested to see everyone's development in the next book. We also just had a super strong female friendship at the forefront of the book instead of romance which I absolutely adored!
Additionally, I felt that the struggles Anthia went through with depression were realistic and didn't try to glamorize it. I could feel and relate to her issues. Not even that, but the way she addressed it and dealt with the stigmas from people around her--wonderful. I also liked that the character explicitly stated she had depression and it wasn't just assumed (because now no one can say that it wasn't in there).
Overall, while I know that this isn't the best or most unique book out there, I had an absolutely blast reading it and am so excited to dive into the second book later today. I highly recommend this one to fantasy lovers and I cannot wait to see what happens in the next!
I'm honestly surprised that I didn't pick this up sooner because I ended up loving it! I got an ARC in my Fairyloot box all the way back in December of 2019 and just hadn't figured out when to read it. Then 2020 hit and I figured I would just wait until the sequel came out so that I didn't have to wait long between books. Well, I got an ARC of the second book and figured it was about time for me to read this one!
This, to me, is the epitome of a great YA fantasy book. I've read a lot of high fantasy YA novels that are super intricate in their world building and magic systems with lots of dense passages and lots of information thrown are way. And don't get me wrong, I do enjoy a dense high fantasy. But I also like a YA fantasy that doesn't throw too much information at you. It seemed to me that the author gave us exactly the right amount of information to understand the world, conflicts, and magic system as we needed.
That being said, I am fascinated by this world. I want to know more about each of the different kingdoms and I especially want to know more about the magic systems at play. I think the idea of the crows is so unique and there's so much room to learn more about them. I'm just overall so interested in exploring this world and the magic systems within it in book two!
This was also a pretty fast-paced book. It's not super long and that felt like a breath of fresh air as well. I do like long books but they can be exhausting at times. I felt that the story moved at a good pace and didn't drag at all. I also just really liked Kalyn's writing style and I found it easy to fall into. I ended up reading most of this book in one sitting and not even realizing the passage of time.
I will say that I've read so many fantasy stories centered around rebellion and "taking back the throne" trope so that didn't feel unique to me but what made me love this book was the characters, the plot, the world, etc. The author took a pretty common trope but has made everything else in the book enjoyable and unique.
Speaking of characters, I really enjoyed the ones in this book. We have our main character with the only POV, Anthia, but we also have multiple side characters who occupy a lot of page time. I loved our main character but I also really loved the side characters. Each one felt developed and unique from the rest--I am very interested to see everyone's development in the next book. We also just had a super strong female friendship at the forefront of the book instead of romance which I absolutely adored!
Additionally, I felt that the struggles Anthia went through with depression were realistic and didn't try to glamorize it. I could feel and relate to her issues. Not even that, but the way she addressed it and dealt with the stigmas from people around her--wonderful. I also liked that the character explicitly stated she had depression and it wasn't just assumed (because now no one can say that it wasn't in there).
Overall, while I know that this isn't the best or most unique book out there, I had an absolutely blast reading it and am so excited to dive into the second book later today. I highly recommend this one to fantasy lovers and I cannot wait to see what happens in the next!
Thanks for reading!
xoxo
Lauren
You can follow my bookstagram here for more bookish content!
To get more awesome posts like this post, click the follow button to the right!
To get more awesome posts like this post, click the follow button to the right!
Get free worldwide shipping with Book Depository using my affiliate link
No comments:
Post a Comment