Flammendes Erwachen

Lost magic, three kingdoms, three teens. That is the basic structure of Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes. But this book is about more than just the lost magic and the three kingdoms. It is about Cleo's journey to save her sister, Magnus's journey towards love, and Jonas's journey towards revenge.

I really enjoyed the alternating perspectives in the books. They went beyond the three characters that book focuses on. But for the most part they stuck to the three kingdoms (Paelsia, Limeros, and Auranos) and the kindred. While at times I would get frustrated because I would want to know more about a certain character but had to read a few chapters before I found out what happened. But that just goes to show how enthralled I was with this book. Once I was about 100 pages in and the story and journey became apparent, I didn't want to put this down and finished it in one sitting.

The 2nd half of this book is leading up to a major battle between the three kingdoms and all the secrets everyone is keeping are exposed. I loved how we got the perspective of each kingdom on the oncoming bloodshed. Some of the choices made in the book were absolutely devastating. While some characters needed to die for the story to progress, I really disagreed with other deaths.

Throughout the book Ioannes really intrigued me. It was like the creepy stalker watching all the characters and seeing what they are up to. He clearly is an important character in these series, we just don't know the full extent yet.

Overall, this was a great introduction to the world and these characters. I cannot wait to continue on with the series in Rebel Spring. Morgan Rhodes is a fantastic writer and has a way of pulling you into a story.

This book was a reread for me. First time around (in the far 2015) I was not impressed by this novel and I was not smitten with it now.

The idea itself is more or less good. But sometimes it feels as if the author wanted to make something grand from it, some big book of wise sayings. But I've already knew that as I started reading it (reread, remember?). I've heard that the series gets better with every book. I do want to check if it is true. I don't have big expectations, I just hope that it will be decent enough.

3.5

Mildly deficient in so many ways (awkward prose, wooden characters, unoriginal plot) that it was hard to determine what made this book so unlikeable.

I didn't mean to read this all at once.
I swear .

Long ago, Mytica was all one kingdom. After elementia (powerful magic) left the land, Mytica split into three kingdoms, Limeros, Auranos, and Paelsia. Each kingdom is very different from the others. Of them all, Paelsia is the only one starving and extremely poor.

While vastly different, these kingdoms have one thing in common. Greedy rulers. They all want more. One event will set the three against each other.

Meanwhile, a prophecy may be coming true. Elementia may be returning. Someone wielding magic could just tip the scales if a war breaks out.

I really enjoyed this book. Some parts were very predictable, otherwise my rating would be higher. I will continue on with the series soon.

This had all the elements that I want in a book but they never seemed to come together in an interesting enough way to make me want to keep reading. The world felt small, the characters were flat and although Im sure they get more interesting as the book goes on, I just couldn't make myself care enough to find out.
Generally “okay” but not enough to stand out (in my mind at least - seems to be on everyone else's lists right now).

That was fun! As a fan of the high fantasy genre, this one met my expectations.

The author managed to make me care about the characters just from the first installment, while i still don't know which side of the war i'm rooting for, all i can say is that the characters were equally likeable and frustrating at the same time.

Nothing exceptional about the plot but it was fast paced and i was entertained thoroughly, i'm looking forward to delve into this series.

Review to come.

DNF ~ 20%This book... oh boy.I really wanted to enjoy this one. The covers in this series were pretty, the synopsis was intriguing, a lot of my friends on here said they liked it and recommended it to me. I did see a few reviews that said this book was terrible and I ignored them in hopes of this book being good.(I really shouldn't have ignored them.)I hated the snobby, one-dimensional characters. I hated the basic, boring setting. I literally despised this book, which isn't normal for me AT ALL because I usually love everything I read... but what really made me not like this book was the writing. The writing was about the same quality as the first [b:Throne of Glass 7896527 Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass, #1) Sarah J. Maas https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1495278054s/7896527.jpg 11138426] novel... but shittier.RANT: And lemme just say that I hated Cleo so much. She literally could've stopped that guy from getting killed, or at least had that guard step in. And then she has the AUDACITY to be all bratty and upset when she gets grounded by her father. OOH I cannot stand that spoiled ass motherfcker.TL;DR: I can't be bothered to read a shit book, especially at this point in the year.*Meaning I might come back to this. Because maybe it gets better.Probably not but I have some weird sense of hope that it does.

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Argh! I don't know how to review this book. To understand my frustration, I'm going to have to give you a little background on my reading. I first saw this book at my local department store and fell in love with the cover. The book sounded good. (Right up my alley, in fact.) However, I waited to buy it, doing my best to convince myself it probably wasn't for me. It didn't work. I bought the book and sat down and started reading it. I was almost immediately disappointed. I made it to around page one hundred eighty-five before stopping and putting it up on my shelf. There it sat (well, actually, I shoved it under my chair...) for I don't even know how long.

However, I never really did get this book out of my head. Finally I picked it back up, dusted the dust-bunnies off it and started up where I left off. Honestly? I'm not sure what my problems were the first time. Maybe I was having a bad day. Maybe I was trying to read this on the heels of a bad book. I don't really know because this book's actually kind of fun. It's not high literature, which is good because as soon as a fantasy starts trying to be high literature, I usually quit enjoying it much.

This book follows four people in the days before war. Tension is simmering just below the surface and everyone can tell this peace won't last long. There's political machinations in the works, as well as a healthy dose of bigotry in the form of people that think citizens of the other two countries are below them in ever way imaginable.

I had really thought that the four characters were going to meet early in the story and then kind of team-up to bring prosperity to all the lands. Yeah... I kind of go for that idealistic stuff, I guess. Instead, what I found was hatred and discontent between the four. Except, noticeably, the two in the story that actually grew up together. And their relationship was just messed up from the start.

The world building was...quite strange. The land of Mytica is an island - vaguely shaped like England and Scotland - that holds the three kingdoms. The northern kingdom is cold. Very cold. Like an ice world. The southern kingdom is prosperous and very religious. The middle kingdom is poor, with lands that cannot grow crops. And... Uh, that's pretty much it. (Oh, if only geography was clearly divided by country lines... ‘course I'm guilty of doing the same thing in the stories I write so...) Besides those problems, travel between one capital and the bordering country's capital apparently takes so little time that it doesn't need to be mentioned and can be completely glossed over. Which, I will admit, could easily be a blessing in disguise as I've never really liked those ‘endless journey' stories.

In fact, one character actually said something along the line of ‘give it a week and I'll come back' while they're in another kingdom and they were on their way home. That's right. Want to invade your neighbors? Three days travel, tops. At least that'll cut down on having to organize an army march. (Now, I didn't hate the way all this was done, it was just very over simplified.)

The characters were quite a mixed bag for me. I hated Jonas. The whole ‘consumed-by-revenge' thing is just not for me. I sort of liked Lucia, but more than anything I felt indifferent to her. She was interesting, but besides one moment when she really got to shine, didn't actually do much. The fact that I liked Cleo surprises me. Yes, she's a spoiled, pampered little brat but, for some reason, I cannot bring myself to hate her. Maybe because she tries and doesn't just sit around and whine. That brings us to Magnus who I found deeply fascinating even though he was totally screwed up in the head. (Okay, I probably found him as interesting as I did because he was screwed up in the head, but shh.)

I like the idea of a bodyguard crush, only in reverse where the guy doing the guarding - preferably of someone so far out of his station that he doesn't have a prayer - falls in love with his charge. That was the romance I was following and - well... It worked out about how I expected. Beyond that, the only other romance we dealt with was pretty much stepped on - along with the heart of someone. I do imagine there will be more romance in the subsequent books, but it was rather nice that it wasn't forced down your throat that these two are in love with each other. Quite a breath of fresh air.

Now, with everything I have said, why didn't I hate this book? Honestly? Hell if I know. The characters weren't original. (I'm sure if you've read many fantasy novels you've already come across their stereotypes before.) The countries were geographically way too close together. (But, seriously, what burgeoning fantasy author hasn't made that mistake. Besides, it's like putting every little issue into a very small pressure cooker.) While the romance wasn't of the ‘love-at-first-sight' type, it was the raison d'etre behind several notable character changes.

So why didn't I hate the book?

Because it was a fun book. Because it was entertaining. The frequent POV changes (all told from third person!) were an added bonus as they changed pretty much every chapter and those type of setups usually work out well for me. All in all, I do look forward to the next book in the series, but it will probably be a long time before I get to it.