This was my first Terry Brooks novel and it will not be my last! I know that there are a lot of lower starred reviews--and I almost DNF'ed the book at the first chapter or two, but hang on! The story really starts to flow about a third of the way in, and it is well worth the wait! Brooks builds a fascinating, detailed, complex world full of complex relationships and lots of surprises along the way. I eagerly turned the digital page to learn more about Auris, her heritage, and her world.

I appreciated that Brooks tied the main arc of the story up, but I suspect that there will be more stories to follow. I look forward to reading them. Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for the free e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

I was thrilled when I was able to receive an advance copy of this book as, Terry Brooks is one of my favorite Science Fiction/Fantasy authors. I was caught up in the story of Auris and Harrow (the 2 main characters) right from the beginning of the book. It starts out rather fast paced but eventually you come to know the characters through the wonderful descriptive writing of, Mr. Brooks. - I finished the novel quickly and was super excited to discover there is going to be a sequel to it. - I have posted a review of this book on my blog and you can find that
on the link below.
Thank you Terry for a wonderful reading experience.

"Then I know. Just like that, I know."

This perfectly sums up the book. Auris, our main character, "just knows" everything. Information and skills manifest as she needs them. Magic has no bounds. Anything you might suspect about her heritage is true.

There are no descriptions. There is no sense of what anything actually looks like. People eat food. There are plants. We have no idea what kind of food or plants, what they look or taste like, no sensory information is given about anything, ever.

The work "quixotic" is used. This word wouldn’t exist without Don Quixote. Does this take place on Earth?

Auris calls herself a “hot mess". Other modern American terminology is used. It's weird.

Auris mostly talks about <spoiler>how she lusts for Harrow. That is the main thing on this girl’s mind. She just escaped a slave camp where she experienced years of torture, watched her friends and other child be brutally murdered, knows that the human government in complicit in this, and she’s like “I want to make out with Harrow”. </spoiler> Is this what you think is on the minds of traumatized teenage girls, Terry Brooks?

The narration repeats itself over and over again. Even within the same sentence. Auris just thinks about the same things, chapter after chapter. It's mostly her just thinking repetitive, cyclic thoughts.

At one point she sits on a bench and waits for something to happen to her.

Auris favorite thing to do is sit and visit. Like an old person. We are not privvy to what happens during these visits, we are just told she hangs out with some people.

At 68% she suddenly wonders what she should do with her life. 68%.

Pretend this is being read by text to voice software. That is how I got through it.
'
Bottom line, it reads like exactly what it is: an old man trying to write in the voice of a 19 year old girl. It doesn't work. The story is trite, boring, and extremely boring.

Okay- yes. So much. Yes.

This was one of the be best books I've read in a long time. When Auris is found by Harrow after her escape from the gobin prison she feels an instant connection to him, but she doesn't quite know why. So many secrets unfold during this book and it is such a whirlwind of excitement- mind you I read the back half of the book in a Starbucks and I could not hold in my gasps.

I don't wanna say too much and give things away- so just read the book.

Thank you Netgalley for an ARC copy.

Posted reviews
Goodreads: posted on May 29, 2021
TikTok @meghanlew_ on May 30, 2021




My favorite part of this book was definitely the world. It was magical and whimsical in every sense, I wish that the author went into more detail about the different types of creature and how the magic works. But the parts of the world we did get to see were incredible.

The plot for the first half of the book felt like the main character and us were being dragged from plot point to plot point. The first half was also hard to read because the writing style felt very stagnant, abrupt, and all over the place. During the second half the plot definitely had a better flow, which kept me from putting the book down too often.

For the first half of the book I found the main character to be incredibly hard to like, because of there seemed to be no development going. About half way through things changed very abruptly, which was confusing, because it felt like I was reading about a whole new character. While I enjoyed how the main character had changed, I wanted the change to seem more natural. The side characters were very one dimensional and added little to the story.

The romance aspect of the book seemed very forced and I would have rather see that main character go through her journey with friends rather, than her worrying about a love interest. Most of the romance also felt instant and I am definitely not one for instant love.

Overall I did enjoy the world of this book and wish to know more about it. But I never really felt connected to the main character or any of the side characters. The main character only really had surface level thoughts, so it made it hard to connect to her, which also made it hard to connect to the story being told. Having a beautifully built world and an exciting plot are what make this book worth it.

I know Terry Brooks' Shannara books are a staple of the fantasy community and dearly loved. I'll admit I haven't read them but I was still looking forward to this book as it sounded so interesting. Sadly, I found it boring.

Everything came to easy to the main character Auris. Her escape from prison left everyone but her dead which doesn't sound like it was "easy" until you find out that she was thrown from a moving vehicle and didn't suffer any injuries. For a while Auris couldn't summon her magic but when it suddenly came to her (just in time to, of course, save a friend) it came so easily that every moment of peril after that was a time waste.

I gave this three stars mostly for the potential this story held. I liked the idea of the Goblin prisons but we never got to explore them in depth and the reasons they held humans was unsatisfying at best. The story wrapped up like a stand alone but it could probably do with a sequel that focused more on story then world building.

Right off the bat, Terry Brooks' "Child of Light" took a hold of me and whisked me away to a world of beautiful Fae and terrible Goblins. The book starts off face paced and tense as teens plan their escape from a horrible prison, risking it all to run off into the unknown.

Where this book lost me was in the characters. At about 100 pages in, I still did not feel connected to the characters in any way. Every person I had met felt hollow and one-dimentional. I felt that the fast pace of the story was becoming a hindrance, leaving no time for the development of personalities and relationships.

"If ever there was a fairy-tale cottage in the forest, this is it. It doesn’t look like anything I have ever seen; it doesn’t even look like something I could have imagined. It is so unique and so compelling, I immediately want to live there."

After reading the quote above, I was so enthralled & interested to find out what this cottage looked like. I was shocked that, by then end of the chapter, no more explanation was given about the appearance of the cottage. This is an example of where I felt the book suffered from the fast paced writing. I wanted to connect more - to the environment, the characters, and the novel in general.

I decided this book was a "did not finish" for me at 28%. I will be revisiting my copy again in the near future & will update my review should my opinion change. Many thanks to Net Galley and Random House Publishing for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review!