The Warrior Heir

The Warrior heir is a very interesting novel. It delves into a magical world of warriors and enchanters, wizards, and have a positive main character to boot. While it is true that some may see this as a Harry Potter knockoff, I saw it as something that was very unique if not very interesting.

Our main character is named Jack. This character is one that I find to be very interesting and very useful to the reader. In most stories like this where you have a main character that becomes a hero in some way, often the main character is a cliché. He's usually very weak both physically and/or mentally, and he cannot work to be any better than what he is without his powers or abilities that he gains later on in the novel. With this book, however, this is not the case. He is actually from the start of a good character for those who wish to emulate him. He's a person who has his own dreams and ambitions, and he's been in past relationships. One of my own personal pet peeves with major protagonists in these types of stories is when the main protagonist finds a love interest that is too pretty or is somehow out of his league. This pet peeve of mine really starts from the idea that it is a cliché and I think that lesser novels are guilty of this. However this is not the case with Jack. He's a character that has developed a relationship before the story has taken place, and we see that he has gone out with the prettiest girl in school, and he's rejected her because of her mean-spirited ways. This immediately abandons typical cliché we see in most novels, and sets us up for a very interesting character that perhaps should have been better handled. While I believe that this character is good from the outset, I simply think that the author does not have writing strong enough to make him a fully fledged character. While I like that he has good ambitions and he has good friends at heart, he lacks a certain development in terms of writing style that makes me want to get to know him more. This is in our fault of the character itself but rather a fault of the author and her writing skill and or style.

Throughout the course of the novel we see that there's some type of antagonists wanting to chase Jack because he remains to be the only warrior in this society and magical world that he lives in. While there are some intense moments with this especially in certain scenes where the reader fined him vulnerable because he does not have his sword to protect them, I found these main antagonist to be a little week. While I understood that they were evil, I didn't necessarily understand why. Yes I realize that they have to take him for the games and use him for their own purposes, but I never really felt like they were terribly evil. Rather, I felt as though they would just here and gone in terms of how evil they were. They simply never stuck with me like say Lord Voldimort did from the Harry Potter series.

The plot of this novel works out pretty well for an introductory book. I like how we spend time working with Jack as he transcends into this new world and we see him grow and change and yet still maintain some of the very good quality character traits that we found in the beginning of the novel. The supporting cast in this all works well in their respective roles. Nick, Jack's caretaker, literally represents the wise old man who helps the warrior on his journey. Jack's aunt Linda serves as a door to which he is opened up into this world. Ellen does serve as a love interest both early on and throughout the novel. I specifically like how Ellen herself is not a cliché. Yes she's interested in soccer but she's also smart and, from the main character's viewpoint, very pretty. I wish that she was a little bit more developed than she already was. I feel like I want to know her character more and I'm hoping to see more for in the later series.

And that is just the major downside with the author writing this series. While the ending is strong and gives hope for the future, I just don't think that her writing really sticks with me. Nothing about this book really sticks itself out from the others in the fantasy genre. True Jack is a positive role model from the outset, but I believe that's just avoiding a cliché as opposed to doing anything of major work organization. While it's true that this book has some good ideas, such as delving into history and genealogy, it never delves into them very much and the time seems to miss them all together. That's why give this book a 2.5 out of five. In almost hits the mark for being average but the fact that I couldn't envision any of these characters outside of the world they inhabited brings this down for me. If you see this at the library I encourage you to pick it up. You are probably going to get a lot more use out of it than I did. This book has some nice role models, and the action is done well, so it will probably entertain you for a while. As for me, I'll read the next in the series and will probably put up a review but as to recommending it to buy I just can't say yes.

Reread in Feb of 2015“More and more, there were no revelations, but simply the uncovering of truths long known but dimly remembered. Everything had been written long ago. There was nothing truly new in the world, but only the slow, circular march of time that revealed the old things once again.”

This was a reread for me. Granted I read this over 5 years ago. This is why I decided to reread it. I never continued with the series and I really want to so I decided to reread the first one. Prior to starting this book, I literally remembered nothing. I had the most basic idea of the end. After I got like 50 pages into this book, a bunch of the plot points came back to me.

As for the actual book, I somewhat enjoyed this book. The world that Chima has created is expansive and I love it. Chima also did a good job just giving us the information we needed never anything more. For me the writing at times was flat, I feel like you could almost categorize this book as middle grade rather than YA. But for the most part, the writing did not hinder my enjoyment.

The story of a “normal” teenager finding out he is special is not unique, but Chima takes an interesting approach to it. Our main character, Jack, is born without a wizard stone (what gives people their powers) and is given a warrior stone instead. Jack is hidden in Ohio to protect him from the feud going on among the Weir people. But of course you cannot hide forever and Jack is thrust into this new world where he must fight to stay alive. Since I have read the book before I knew the ending, but I did not remember all the plot twists which helped with my enjoyment.

One last thing I want to mention is the prologue. I have read many mixed things about it. Yes it is really long at 18 pages. But I really liked it. It sets up this whole mystery of why they were after the family and what happened to the family after the attack. Personally, I'm a huge fan of prologues especially when their meaning and importance is not at all apparent at first.

This was a hard review to write for me because I remember really enjoying this book when I first read it, but after rereading it, I'm not in love. It is really hard to write a review for a book you have reread especially when you had high expectations and the reread was not as good as you remembered. I think part of that is because I'm older and have read many other fantasy books that I love. For me, The Warrior Heir is an interesting world with intrigue, but there was just something missing. I definitely want to read the other books in the series.

While yes, this book is just the typical story of a teenager, who is thrust into a strange new world with new powers/talents and discovers others are after him because he is the chosen one... just like dozens of other books and stories. However, this world building is very interesting and I love the guilds and the magic system. Cinda Williams Chima writes a great story and uses beautiful language.
I enjoyed this book as a teenager and still continue to enjoy it. I will be reading the rest of the series.

Quotes:
“Just remember who are you are... The world will try to change you into someone else. Don't let them. That's the best advise anyone can give you.”

“They fought for glory, but not for blood. They were Weirlind, heirs of the warrior's stone. And they always slept better with blades beneath their beds.”

This one wasn't my cup of tea. I found it waaaaay too long and detailed, and lost interest about a quarter of the way through. It takes almost 400 pages just to get the the tournament, and by then, I just didn't care. That said, I know Chima has a strong fan base and can't wait to see what the book club thought about it tonight. I am glad I read it, but I am curious as to whether or not this one is so rambling because it is her first novel, and if the other ones are less repetitive. It reminded me a bit of Harry Potter and the Hunger Games, but only a tiny bit. All of the adults in this novel are just horrible (except Nick, the ghosts, and sometimes, Linda). I wasn't impressed with Jack or Ellen, and Will and Fitch are interchangeable and useless.