Brightly Woven (edition 2010)

magic, weaving, adventure, excitement ( )

I liked this story very much. It was a cute fantasy and romance, but it didn't go much farther than that. It didn't exactly make readers think very hard, and their was little to know meaning behind this. I feel like it was also a bit of a cliché, which I usually try to avoid. I think that this book really could have been longer. There was so much skipped over in this! However, it is a good story, key word being good, not great. ( )

Very well done! I enjoyed it a lot. The one minor complaint I have is that in a few places it seemed like Sydella's emotional reaction to something was sort of glossed over or hurried by. (Aug. 2010) ( )

Plot: 3 stars
Characters: 3 1/2 stars
Style: 3 stars
Pace: 3 stars

Very cute, but not very deep. This read more like a middle grade, possibly even chapter book level. It's just very twee. I'd add a star if you're giving this to a child under 12, because for what it is, it's very good. It just felt like a lot more could be done with it, from the characters to the plot and setting, and it left me wanting a version targeted as regular epic fantasy. ( )

I just don't know about this book. I felt like the story didn't move slowly and, though I'm a fan of keeping the story going, in this case the pace was too quick. The first pages give us a little background on Sydelle Mirabil, the main character. She is a weaver from a small desert town in the outskirts of a fictional country. One day, she is out playing hide-and-seek with her Gale (oops, I mean Henry) and then BAM! It is pouring, soldiers are coming, and some man shows up and basically trades for her. Thus begins their whirlwind tour of all kinds of places on the way to the country's capital to deliver a message.

I think this book has tons of potential. It's one of the rare cases where I wish it were longer rather than shorter--because you can't just bring up tons of interesting plot points and pass them by. Oh, North is going to fight a dragon? Let's not have Sydelle go and then I don't have to write that scene (or maybe it got edited out). Let's have the wizards duel but we'll just make Sydelle stay home. I believe the technical name for this affliction is called [b:Mockingjay|7260188|Mockingjay (Hunger Games, #3)|Suzanne Collins|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1282388315s/7260188.jpg|8812783] Syndrome. Though this book only has a mild case, it's still there. I wish this author and/or her editors would've broken this up into several books or allowed it to be longer--the world building was interesting and I definitely wanted to know more about the characters! ( )