A comforting tale that grows oversaturated with sweetness.
Two former students of a magic academy find work and make new friends in Rossi’s fantasy novel.
Upon graduating from school, it can be difficult for young people to find their place in the world, but youthful and entrepreneurial lovers Kika and Balerya achieve success straight away. The skills they learned at Avara Academy, a magical institute, are useful: Balerya can fly, harness the wind, and coax flames from her fingertips; nature-loving Kika studied terrakinesis and can produce water on demand. Their first money-making venture is selling the fruits and vegetables Kika magically grows. Balerya advertises by flying above rooftops and letting the wind sweep her informational words (“Fresh produce for three coppers a piece”) beneath all the doorways. Soon they begin receiving orders from the residents of their village, Serilda. Kika and Balerya’s next enterprise is baking fruit pies, which also proves successful. Then, while napping on a cloud, Balerya gets inspired to bring down bits of clouds to weave into hammocks, bedding, and soft and fluffy clothing. Running their various businesses, the couple gets acquainted with their neighbors, a blend of all types of creatures including gnomes, centaurs, elves, goblins, animals, and humans. Rossi’s world is “quiet, slow, peaceful,” an idyllic place where all exist in harmony and equality. Same-sex couples like Kika and Balerya are presented as unremarkable; endearments abound, with characters referring to each other as dear, darling, love, sproutling, and cloudling. All problems seem small and solvable—villagers trapped inside by snow, prevented from going to a village-wide festival, happily have their own party. Even Mrs. Morley, a grumpy landlady, is revealed to have a softer side, crying at her son’s wedding and showing generosity towards Kika and Balerya. Though the book initially makes for a pleasant escape from real-world strife, readers may eventually feel mildly stifled by the fluffiness tightly encasing them like a cloud-sweater, longing for Kika and Balerya to just once engage in even the smallest of spats.
A comforting tale that grows oversaturated with sweetness.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9798340764478
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Dec. 31, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.
A young Navarrian woman faces even greater challenges in her second year at dragon-riding school.
Violet Sorrengail did all the normal things one would do as a first-year student at Basgiath War College: made new friends, fell in love, and survived multiple assassination attempts. She was also the first rider to ever bond with two dragons: Tairn, a powerful black dragon with a distinguished battle history, and Andarna, a baby dragon too young to carry a rider. At the end of Fourth Wing (2023), Violet and her lover, Xaden Riorson, discovered that Navarre is under attack from wyvern, evil two-legged dragons, and venin, soulless monsters that harvest energy from the ground. Navarrians had always been told that these were monsters of legend and myth, not real creatures dangerously close to breaking through Navarre’s wards and attacking civilian populations. In this overly long sequel, Violet, Xaden, and their dragons are determined to find a way to protect Navarre, despite the fact that the army and government hid the truth about these creatures. Due to the machinations of several traitorous instructors at Basgiath, Xaden and Violet are separated for most of the book—he’s stationed at a distant outpost, leaving her to handle the treacherous, cutthroat world of the war college on her own. Violet is repeatedly threatened by her new vice commandant, a brutal man who wants to silence her. Although Violet and her dragons continue to model extreme bravery, the novel feels repetitive and more than a little sloppy, leaving obvious questions about the world unanswered. The book is full of action and just as full of plot holes, including scenes that are illogical or disconnected from the main narrative. Secondary characters are ignored until a scene requires them to assist Violet or to be killed in the endless violence that plagues their school.
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374172
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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