(full review with spoiler tags posted on Goodreads)

[[Edit: a month later and I'm still thinking of it, fondly. It's a 4. Thank you 😊]]

TL;DR: can't decide between a 3 and a 4. can't simplify my thoughts. too many feels.... This is maybe the closest I can get to a cohesive thought.. "Man! You were sooo close!.. It was right there.. you had it!.. Whyyyyyyy!? 😭"

Believe me when I say, I was really rooting for this book!

This review is going to be long. I have so many thoughts and feelings after having had so much time invested in this story, the world and its characters.

The book itself is a long one, and I was happily taking my time to enjoy it. I've come to really enjoy long journeys and worlds saturated in lore.

However, I can pinpoint the exact moment when this book finally lost me. It wasn't just one thing, it was a combination. But I unfortunately did have that "I'm done!" moment.

But it's certainly not all bad. Not at all.

There are so many fantastic elements in this book, and some things that just didn't quite make it for me.

Some quick facts:

+a very (very) long journey*
+a lot (a lot) of lore*
+magic ✨
+solid group of main characters
+tolkien inspired
+immersive world
+endless places and towns*
+endless races and creatures*
+romance (no, no, no)
+stronger first half
+dragons 🐉
+very important elements are rushed/less detailed/skipped over(!)
+who's the big bad again(?)
+(big spoiler)
+final battle ⚔️

*: a bit too much. I can understand the average reader becoming overwhelmed and confused. I was also lost at times and couldn't keep track of everything, so I just relaxed and stopped trying. You'd have to keep notes in order to remember everything.

~

The romance:

Totally personal preference but..

I don't ship them. Lena+(view spoiler) Please, no.
I just didn't buy it.

1. Came out of absolutely nowhere.
2. NO CHEMISTRY. It was like watching an uncle kiss his niece or something.
3. I legit thought the male was at least in his 40s. Which doesn't exclude romance with a younger woman, by any means. But I just got the feeling that he was meant to be an older, mentor type. Which brings me to probably the biggest reason of all..
4. PLATONIC.. Their relationship had all the elements of something beautifully platonic. A shared non-romantic love. Would've been epic 💔

~

(!) Very important elements glazed over:

Major spoilers (view spoiler)

It happened so fast you could honestly miss it. I had to go back and check it actually happened. (view spoiler)

This is where I finally lost it. I was done.

Other elements and scenes also feel very rushed, particularly in the last 100 pages.

~

(?) who's the big bad again?:

(view spoiler)

The final battle: disappointing

(view spoiler)

All the issues I had truly tie into there being too much going on and the author having to put focus and energy where it shouldn't have been needed.

~

Overall, I did really enjoy the book!

It actually pains me that I can't rate it higher.

Just the fact alone, that the author was able to evoke such strong feelings within me, enough to write a review of this amount of passion and length - truly says something. That doesn't happen very often. And I recognise and appreciate its significance.

I fell in love with this world.

The author has "it".

I will be looking out for other works by this author.

Well written and a strong, beautiful story. I loved Lena, she's strong and courageous, and is an overall good character.

Well written and compelling, this books puts you into the world of Lena and takes you on an epic quest.

This has some terrific world building, although in some aspects it may have too much information which just slows the story down.

The characters are well developed but the story really slows down between the action making it a real struggle in places.

Overall well worth 3 stars but not really 4.

The first lines of this book really sucked me in from the first second. While I didn't fully understand the world setting, it was a nice change. In the first chapters we meet the younger main characters and as they don't fully understand the world, it's ok that the reader doesn't either. 

Somehow along the way, I lost interest in this book. Funny thing is, that I was truly disappointed that the characters grew up so fast. I adored the coming-of-ages chapters. This book is the kind that is very fast-paced and filled with action. Maybe at times too fast? 

Lena is, for most, probably a wonderful character, but I've never really clicked with her. Her younger self was in my opinion in her naïveté much fiercer than older 'trained' Lena. She may have lost everything on the way, but everything seems to come easy for her. Additionally, the self-mutilation was a real turn-off for me.

I've never fully came to understand the world the author tried to build. The terminology was lost on me and some more explication would have been wonderful. 

This book will appeal to many fantasy lovers who appreciate fast-pace novels packed in a huge new world.

💀REVIEW💀 Genre: Fantasy Fiction, High fantasy

“Forge your own path” ⚔️

That’s exactly what Lena did. So many deaths. So much carnage. At the expense of what? Where does the fault truly lie? Nothing is truth, or at least everyone has their own truths.

I enjoyed watching the main character, Lena, change and evolve into a completely different person as the story progressed. You really feel for her and the things she has to survive through everyday. It’s always one thing after another which is very relatable. My favorite part of the book would have to be the last chapter though. It really left me wanting more and it was not the ending I was expecting, which is always the best way to end a book. If the author plans on a second book, this ending was the ✨perfect✨ setup.

Unfortunately, this book presented with too many cons over pros for me. Too many details, too many characters and lands and info dumping. It really lost me at points and I found myself skimming a good majority of the book. This upset me because I definitely felt I could’ve gotten into the book if it weren’t for all of this. Fortunately, some readers love worldbuilding and infodumping, so I’m not saying this book isn’t for anyone, it’s just not one I truly loved because I personally prefer plot and characters over worldbuilding and multiple backstories.

Trigger Warning: Self-injurious behavior

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A pretty typical high/epic fantasy start up, which i struggled to get into for the first 15% due to the many recycled tropes we've seen before, but then the book moves away from these and carves out something of its own.

The world building was good and though people tend to have an issue with telling the reader rather than showing the reader, I like stories around a camp fire. I think if you have a group of people, from different places, around a campfire in an evening, I do think sharing tales of their journeys is how you would pass a meal together. So I enjoyed the way the lore was laid out like that.

However, there is a lot of repetition within this book and I don't know if that is on purpose but the two main female characters go through the same development cycle and I'm not sure that adds anything. You could argue its a way for the author to explore how how two different people deal with mistakes they have made, either with the impact of the region or their possible love interests, but it wasn't varied enough to feel like they were within 2 different arcs.

The male characters felt like different people which when you have a group together tend to sound the same but I enjoyed each of them. I didn't like some characters that I think I was supposed to like but they can't all click with you.

Overall really enjoyed it. The author isn't redefining the genre, but I liked my evenings spent in his mind and will read something else by him.

This was a fun read and I thoroughly enjoyed Lena’s development throughout the story and felt that even though some aspects were tropey, they were well done and allowed me to really enjoy the writing and character dynamics.
Well written and the plot and pace was fun.
4 stars