Michelle Rowen

I picked this up because I kinda liked The Book of Spirits and Thieves trilogy that got cancelled after the second book. There were some things bugged me, for sure, they weren't my favourites, but I didn't really think [b:Falling Kingdoms|12954620|Falling Kingdoms (Falling Kingdoms, #1)|Morgan Rhodes|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1337026387l/12954620._SY75_.jpg|18111704] would be this bad. I guess I kinda forgot that this series was 9 or so books long show more and that [b:The Book of Spirits and Thieves|22571365|A Book of Spirits and Thieves (Spirits and Thieves, #1)|Morgan Rhodes|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1429026765l/22571365._SY75_.jpg|42037808] was the 10th or so book by the author.

Everything about this book was cringy. The dialogue was really awful. Every time a character started talking I wanted them to stop. No one talks the way these people do. And it's not like the author was trying to make an interesting linguistics structure to make her world more immersive, it was just really bad, exposition-y, and stuck-up dialogue. All her descriptions felt off and there was lots of telling. Like paragraphs at a time establishing the fact that a character was uncomfortable by something or hated someone. Something that could have very easily been shown in a few sentences and then moved on from. There were no variations in the writing style for any of the characters. While this stuff worked for the character of Magnus, it really, really did not for the others. It just made them all look dumb. Because things were so obvious to one character that it made me wonder why another character was oblivious and literally how was it possible for the entire plot to happen.

Next the plot. It was, wow. It had some potential, but the untapped potential was weighed down by everything else. From the absolute annoyingness that was the lead Cleo to the fact that everything just worked and happened. Anything that should have been built up and given time to develop seemed random and the few things that were supposed to be plot twists were glaringly obvious from the beginning. I wouldn't have had an issue if a character did something oblivious to a bunch of stuff, but a soon as a random other person figured it out and brought attention to it, it just made that character look stupid, especially when it was brought to their attention by someone else and they still said "whatever". If some of these things had been ignored and left alone to come as a surprise, it would have been a bit better. Instead, it just felt really random, kinda like this:

Kingdom 3: Hey, Kingdom 2, my very weak neighbour, let's fight your neighbour Kingdom 1! I may or may not have a super, all-powerful ex-Machina that will make sure we win.
K2: Sure let's do it. That's an amazing plan! Plus one of the nobles there killed one of my peasants who was being rude to him. Their king claims it was self-defence but my peasant says it wasn't so I really hate the king now.
K2 and K3 declared war on K1 the next day.
K1: oops, well uh, people fight.
Mild Spoiler but seriously you see it coming:
K2: Wait, K3 is so much stronger what if they take us over. Also, what are we gonna do with K1 once we win?
K3 has now taken everything over.

You mean to tell me no one but a random peasant saw this coming? And there were no pre-war negotiations other than: "hey look we kidnapped your stupid princess who somehow (even the reader doesn't know how) got out of a palace without her personal bodyguard or literally anyone in the kingdom noticing until she was well into K2 and the ONLY person who recognized her was a peasant boy who hates her because her fiancee killed his brother." There was no struggle anywhere. He just heard rumours of a girl who looked like Cleo walking around, decided to kidnap her, and that was that.

And the emotional tension was in all the wrong places. None of the romances got any development.
This spoiler is for a random (as in came out of nowhere and had no real consequences) plot element plus the ending of [b:Crooked Kingdom|22299763|Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows, #2)|Leigh Bardugo|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1456172607l/22299763._SY75_.jpg|42090179]: So when they died all I could think was "really? all the tears? I literally have no idea who this person is or why I care or why you care." I think if the author had been focused more on building up their relationship than the emotional ending she had planned, it would actually have been an emotional ending. Like Mattias's death in [b:Crooked Kingdom|22299763|Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows, #2)|Leigh Bardugo|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1456172607l/22299763._SY75_.jpg|42090179]. If she wanted the emotion, she really should have focused on the relationship between Cleo and her dying sister. That whole struggle lead the middle bit of the plot and carried more weight and importance to the rest of the book than the romances Cleo had. Not to mention that a few of the characters brought in for (what I assume was supposed to be romantic tension) just kinda disappeared once thye stopped being relevant or interesting; if they ever were to begin with.

I don't get why this book was hyped. I'll give it credit for being quick to read when I was actually bothered to read it but it was seriously lacking everwhere. plot, character development, structure, plot development, a distinctive and engaging voice that wasn't annoying. I could go on. While I'm not a huge fan of [b:A Game of Thrones|13496|A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1)|George R.R. Martin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1562726234l/13496._SY75_.jpg|1466917], I do not see the comparison. Maybe in the fact that kingdoms are fighting each other and the fact that the magic system and religious beliefs are kinda interesting, but they are totally different. It's doing both books harm. This book does not have the depth and nuance to it that A Song of Ice and Fire has, nor does it have characters that are likable with complex motivations. I actually like a few of the characters from GoT but all I can say for these guys is that Magnus was okay in the beginning but after that started to develop into a wet blanket like Cleo. This comparison is what made me think this might actually be a good book. It would have all the depth and nuance to it that GoT had, minus a lot of the stuff that bugged me because this book is YA. But that is not what this book is. It's a hot mess of random plot points and a lot of characters and kingdoms and oooohhhh look over there! It's a war. I'm glad I got this out from the library and I don't recommend it to anyone looking to get into fantasy or YA lest it turns you off an amazing genre. Go read [a:Kristin Cashore|1373880|Kristin Cashore|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1273894652p2/1373880.jpg] I swear by everything she's written.

On a final note, how does Toronto tie into any of this? Please fill me on what the prequels have to do with anything because that's all that kept me reading. show less

I'll admit, I had some serious doubts when I first heard about this young adult novel styled as an epic fantasy. I'm more of an adult fiction reader, so when I think about epic fantasy I can't help but picture vast sweeping sagas in big fat tomes, and I have no doubt it was this bias making me skeptical as I eyed this relatively thin volume.

So you can imagine my surprise when it turned out I quite enjoyed this book. Still, I did don my YA hat as I was thinking about how to rate and review show more it. And furthermore, you should know that any time anyone anywhere compares anything to George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, I take it with a grain of salt. On several levels, I suppose I can understand the reasons for some of the comparisons, or why a story like this would appeal to fans of Game of Thrones. And yet, to date I've never actually encountered anything else quite like Martin's epic series and I didn't anticipate it would happen now.

As such, you could say I went into Falling Kingdoms with a realistic outlook, along with an expectation for some of the usual YA trappings and perhaps a more delicate, dialed-down version of my beloved epic fantasy tropes. But putting it like that would also be doing this book a great injustice, because it also turned out to be a deeper and more intricate reading experience than thought. Despite having a central cast of mostly teenagers, some of the more mature and darker themes also took me by surprise.

The scope of the story was certainly extensive and far-reaching enough for my tastes; here we have a land where the rulers of three separate kingdoms are locked in a bitter struggle for power, thus creating a hotbed for intrigue, conspiracy, scandal and all that good stuff. I wasn't expecting to see too much complexity, and indeed, the plot felt strained in certain places, I found myself questioning character motivations a lot, and some of the world building and story elements were lighter than what I'm accustomed to. And yet, when I look at the overall big picture, I was quite impressed with what I saw. It's a lot more than I'd hoped to find in a YA novel, that's for sure.

In a sense, this book reads exactly as it is described: an epic fantasy for teens. Since that was how I approached it, I thought it delivered everything that was promised and much more besides. If anything, the plot's overall simplicity and straightforward nature of the narrative actually work in the novel's favor. It's very accessible, easy to get into even if you aren't an epic fantasy reader, and the story is just layered enough to be interesting but not confusing or overwhelming.

Falling Kingdoms proved to be a highly enjoyable read for me. Keeping in mind it is a YA novel, it's probably not ideal if you're looking for a more powerful, substantial epic fantasy, but I had a lot of fun nonetheless. I'm actually really looking forward to starting the new book soon. show less

This book was leagues better than the first one! The grammatical errors were pretty much fixed, but there were a couple of sections where the writing all of a sudden changed tenses.

The story itself definitely picked up the pace. There was a ton of fighting and very unfortunate deaths, some of which actually made me sad for the characters. I hope that those who survived the constant violent onslaughts keep their wits about them and don't go charging into deadly situations.

Of the characters show more that I have grown to like, Lucia concerns me the most. She seems to be balanced on a knife's edge between being evil or good. It will be interesting to see which way her powers pull her.

Jonas is another that concerns me, though in a different way. He doesn't seem to think through his actions and this behavior got a lot of his rebels killed in this book, especially during the wedding scene. He really needs to take a step back and look at the bigger picture before moving into action.

Cleo and Magnus bove grew on me a little in this book. I am interested in seeing more of their interactions together and with the king because they both seem to be dangerously close to pushing him (King Gaius) way too close to killing them. show less

I like the epic nature of this story, and the characters are drawn really well. But I think I'm biased toward non-YA epic fantasy, and this just didn't live up to what I was hoping to read. For example, I don't always mind figuring things out before the characters, but in this case I wasn't surprised by ANY of the plot developments. I also didn't particularly like most of the characters, which didn't help. And it may have suffered because I recently reread a few of my favorite Tamora Pierce show more series, and I just LOVE those characters so much.

Finally, on a mildly spoilery note: I am really not a fan of the incestuous love-but oh it's not really-but wait-the angst!!!! storylines. Which probably all added up to make this a book written for a very different reader from myself. show less