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| Book cover via Amazon.com |
Opinion
If you are not following Jimi Rodriquez on Twitter, my friends you are missing out. He supports me, and I follow him back. He’s a wonderful part of the Twitter #writerscommunity, and I think it should be noted. One lovely day, Jimi contacted me, and he asked me to review his book baby as honestly as possible. Jimi, I got you, man.
This is an honest review of a book about literal schooling of magic: not just the school itself, but the religious system, the magic system, and all the lovely added bits that come with this sort of fantasy novel. I want to take some time to go over an element that rarely gets anywhere near enough praise, and that is the world building in this book. Jimi took his time and built up a world that is immersive, detailed, and believable. Even though this is a fantasy setting, everything in this world is constructed to explain it all out well. I enjoyed that. I appreciated that the religion that was put into place made sense for what was given, and it wasn’t so complicated that I wanted to fall asleep.
Atop this lovely foundation work Jimi did, comes a story of a young man who goes from a very young boy who loves his mother, through the ages to a powerful man. Along the way, he goes through pitfalls and through normal things any man does, but mostly the story is about the life of this world the man lives in. I think it’s one of the best sorts of origin stories I’ve read for a book like this because it isn’t too detailed, but it is detailed enough.
Now for some critiques. For as much as I enjoyed the world building, if you blink wrong while reading this book, you will become lost and have to go back and re-read. It’s worth it, don’t get me wrong, but this story is demanding. It demands your full attention. If you are looking for a leisurely read with a glass of wine, this is not that kind of book. This book needs strong coffee and your undivided attention. The reason that’s a critique, well, I’m not sure if you guys noticed this or not, but I’ve been doing a series of book reviews this month. 31 books in 31 days, I pretty much have reading down to a system now, and, not to toot my own horn here, but Mrs. Y is going to get surprised if the system suddenly isn’t working. This critique falls into my “Lost in translation” section. While yes, I assure you, this book did receive my undivided attention; it was attention that I had to infuse myself with coffee to give it. I had to make sure my kids were occupied with other things as well and very quiet because the noise was getting me lost at times.
Let’s go into serious positives on that note. Firstly, it’s written well. The lines and margins on the book are beautiful on the e-reader, and just as precise as the world building. Excellent use of commas needs to be pointed out because it was lovely. I also enjoyed no frustration with improper ellipsis use. I didn’t find a single poor use of ellipsis.
As far as the story, my main positive has to be just how well this book reads with pacing and the added tension in the right places. From suspense to sexual tension, to even that dynamic tension you need between antagonist and protagonist, this had a good blend.
Lastly, this book is a good series starter. This has a complete story for what it is. There is a full beginning, middle and ending once you read the epilogue. I always read prologues and epilogues, it’s been some time since I saw an epilogue of worth, and this one indeed had one.
Score
Score here is a resounding 93/100 which is a 5-star review on Goodreads and Amazon. Again, please do not read this unless you are going to pay very close attention to all of it.
