Cover Image: An Elf's Equations

An Elf's Equations

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Member Reviews

As a maths teacher who is also passionate about literacy, this was right up my alley. An entertaining children’s book that incorporates funny characters, a host of fantasy creatures, entertaining adventures and best of all fun with numbers. Mostly, it was all executed very well, though the main character at one stage calms down by counting up in prime numbers and starts with 1 (which is not a prime number!). Other than that, I really enjoyed the way Maths was incorporated into the story and I will recommend to it to those of my students who enjoy fantasy books.

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I think this book is struggling with a disconnect between what is being promoted on the cover and what the content actually is. The cover and promotion material seems to suggest this is a strong math-based story, something akin to The Phantom Tollbooth, Quaternia, or Dot and Line. However the mathematics applied in the book are minimal and basically serve as a summary plot point for the MC, who prefers mathematics to the more religious approach to nature worship of her elvish community. I suspect the relatively low ratings are a result of people's disappointment between their expectations and the reality of this otherwise pleasant adventure fantasy

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I really struggled with this book. There were a lot of character introductions very fast and i found myself having to re-read to get everyone sorted. Normally I would love this type of book, but it just wasn't working for me. I read this without realising it was part of a series and so maybe it would have been better if I read the others first. That said it is not a series that I think I will be persisting with. And in all honesty I only ready about 70% of the book and then just couldnt push myself to finish.

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I read the previous two books in this series and really enjoyed them. This book fell flat for me. Sagara is incredibly cynical and has a really bad attitude. The opening chapter of the book also put a bad taste in my mouth. The very first line is...

"I am soooooo sick of stupid people who can't pronounce Vanir names properly. Or dragon names. Or my name, for that matter. Get it right!'

Wow...I realize that's supposedly Cretacia 'speaking', but as someone who read the first two books, seems a little harsh to be calling me stupid for mispronouncing a bunch of made-up names. I feel like there was maybe a better way to go about that section.

What WAS stupid was the plot of this book. It was sooooo boring (see what I did there?). A whole lot of nothing happening for a whole lot of time. I skimmed through to the unsatisfying end, and quickly put it out of my mind. I am officially done with series.

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The book was not a bad book. The cover and synopsis were what originally brought me to want to read it. Luckily Netgalley offered me an ARC in return for my honest review.

It is a good read, but it was intended for a younger age group. The book came off more as a preteen book and that might possibly be why I did not enjoy it as much.

The writing is great as well as a MC who is interested in math and logic instead of what usual MCs seem to be drawn to.

This piece of literature would be wonderful, as long as it is received by the right age group and sadly that just was not me. That is the only reason I am not giving it more stars. I had to struggle to finish it because I really don’t think I was the intended audience. In fact, this might be a wonderful book to give to younger kids in order to see if they prefer the fantasy genre before diving head first into YA readers favorites such as Throne of Glass or Red Queen.

-Stone

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I really wanted to like this book. It has everything I look for in a book with elves. But after about half way in I loss interest in the book. I did push through a bit farther but ended up DNF'ING the book.

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