Falling Kingdoms

You're the same as you were yesterday and the day before... nothing has changed. Not really. Forget what troubles you. Regret nothing, but learn from any mistakes you make. Tomorrow wil be a brighter day, I promise.

Honestly, I am kind of mad. I went into [b:Falling Kingdoms|12954620|Falling Kingdoms (Falling Kingdoms, #1)|Morgan Rhodes|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1337026387s/12954620.jpg|18111704] with high expectations. I've been looking out for another high fantasy, romance centered series to read for awhile just to fill the time (like [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]) but unfortunately, this fell short for show more me.

Right from the beginning, I had issues with the writing. This story is a good idea, but the author sabotaged herself with her writing. It absolutely butchered anything good about it. Now, I'm fully aware that writing gets better with practice (again, just look at the Throne of Glass series. I can't stand the writing in the first two books) and was ready to give this a good chance, but it just didn't get any better.

This book was cheesy and predictable. Despite liking how many characters there were, all of them were annoying and undeveloped. People who can't think clearly and jump on their feelings way to fast. Characters who make you want to pull your teeth out they're so dumb. I also didn't understand a lot of the decisions that were made in this book by characters... for the sake of spoilers, I won't go into it, but you'd get what I meant if you weren't a fan of this book.

All over, this felt like a build a fantasy or microwave fantasy YA novel. It had the:
• Mediocre, underdeveloped "magic" system (aka elemental magic
• Princess or protagonist who is "different" than everyone
• Someone who doesn't know they actually have "powers"
• Romance that adds nothing to the plot

Also, I don't care one lick for incestuous side plots. Whether or not they're actually siblings. To me, if I found out my older brother actually wasn't my real brother by blood, there is no way I would be on him or anything. I would still treat him like a brother, no matter if we shared the same parentage or not.

This oddly felt like a Mortal Instruments fanfic, and not in a good way. I can't stand TMI, and this was no exepction. In fact, there were a few times when you could stick Jace, Clary, Alec, and that other girl in the characters shoes and it was basically Cassandra Clare's work.

Needless to say, I wasn't a fan. I tried to remain open to it getting better, even going onto the next book, but after this I don't think I'll be continuing. My standards for fantasy are a little too high these days.

If you liked it, go you! It just wasn't my cup of tea. show less

I have never read Game of Thrones, and it is not on my to-read list, but from what I know about Game of Thrones I'd say that the author of this book was trying to create a YA version of that series.

Lots of people die. There are a bunch of different POVs, and it's hard not to hate most of the characters, and even the few that are not loathsome are not all that likeable. There's a big war, lot's of blood and guts, and the book ends with an obvious setup for a sequel. And yet somehow I feel the need to know how this ends.

It's usually hard to get me committed to a long series if I don't like the main character(s), but Kiera Cass managed it with her addictive writing style, and, at least so far, so has Morgan Rhodes. Morgan Rhodes's writing show more style is not as addictive as Kiera Cass's, and I honestly don't think that it's particularly unique, which leads me to believe that my desire to keep going with this series stems not from the writing, and more from my fascination in seeing how all of these tangled threads of characters, motives and desires leads.

The characters that I didn't loath are; Cleo, Emilia, Nic, Theon, Corvin, Jonas, Brion, Eirene, Lucia, Jana and Alexius. Four of those characters are dead by the end of the book. I really don't like even these one's enough to know who I'm really rooting for, but at least I don't hate them the way I do most of the others. Cleo is immature, selfish and annoying, yet strong in her own way, and determined. She also seems to be quick to open her heart to people, and once she cares about someone, she seems to care about them with her whole heart. She was probably my favorite character. Emilia is loving and cares very much for her younger sister, though we really don't get to know her very well, she seems rather selfish as well. Nic was brave even though he was not physically strong. He seemed somewhat selfish in his reasons for going to Paelsia with Cleo (he wanted to spend time with her and be her hero,) yet, he was also fairly unselfish in comparison with the rest of the characters. He did not push himself at Cleo romantically the way most of the obviously-not-going-to-win sides of the love triangles do, but instead just did his best to be there for her when she needed him. Theon is passionate and brave. He is probably the most unselfish of the characters, though I wasn't a fan of his instalove with Cleo. It felt in character with Cleo, to become deeply infatuated so quickly, but I didn't think it worked very well with Theon's character. And the weirdness of Cleo and Theon's romantic attachment in light of Cleo's sister and Theon's father having been romantically involved was not lost on me. Corvin pushed his will on Cleo at times, but even during those times I had no doubt that he loved her very much. He was a weird mix of ignorant and wise, in that he ignored Paelsia's problems, and the fact that members of his country were taking advantage of their plight, yet he knew enough to warn Jonas that Paelsia's alligning with Limeros was suicidal.

I hate dealing with characters who are driven by vengeance. Yet somehow I didn't hate Jonas. I liked him because he thought that what he was doing was going to help his country, and he wasn't so blind as to completely ignore Corvin's warning. I found his construing Cleo's reaction to his brother's death to allow him to blame her was frustrating since we'd been in her head when we saw Tomas die, but I was also glad when he was able to feel some sympathy for her when he captured her, as well as his willingness to overcome his feelings at the end of the book. I think I see what could turn into a romance between Cleo and Jonas. Brion was not a major character, but he did have some funny reactions and has potential to add a little bit of humor in future books, which would be welcome because this book forgot about humor. Eirene is interesting. Naturally all of the readers could already guess that she was the ex-watcher the moment we met her. I think (and hope) that she could become important in future books.

Lucia was full of goodness and sweetness at the beginning of the book, but in allowing her evil and manipulative father (and brother) to control her, she is corrupting her character. She can see that Magnus has gone from being a loving brother to a corrupting and hate-filled character, yet she continues to allow him and her father to use her in the hopes that she will regain his brotherly love for her, which he manipulatively withdrew when, even after finding out that she was adopted and not a blood relation to him, she still only loved him as a brother. Jana is hardly worth mentioning since she died in the prologue, but she was an interesting character, being torn between wanting to help her people, and hating the killing and evil that she has to do to achieve that.

I don't hate Alexius. Yet. But his sitting back and watching while Lucia allows her family to corrupt her spirit bothers me, and all of his 'I will be so angry if I wasted my time watching this girl if she's not the powerful sorceress I think she is who my people and I can use to get back the power we used to have.' Yet he's smart enough not to tell watchers who have obviously been corrupted that she is indeed the sorceress. I also have some appreciation for the fact that he was checking on his banished sister at the end of the book.

The rest of the characters are just so filled with evil that I can't care about them. I do, admittedly feel somewhat bad for Magnus, but he is turning into his father. Who he hates. I also don't think that he loves Lucia as much as he thinks he does. He used to maybe, but when she won't give in to his romantic feelings for her, he withdraws and punishes her for it, which makes me think that his lust for her, and his desire to control her are far stronger than any love, brotherly or otherwise, that he might have for her.

I thought that the ending of the book was kind of weird. It would have made more sense to me if Cleo had remained free and the way she was captured felt far too abrupt to feel real. Overall I liked this book, though part of me still doesn't know why. show less

My, oh my, this was absolutely fantastic! Without any doubt or hesitation I’m giving this one 5 full stars, even a month after I have finished it. I loved this book! It kept me reading late into the night, homework was disregarded, my social life (ha!) fell to the wayside as I locked myself in my room to JUST. KEEP. READING. It may have been because I haven’t read anything new or particularly good recently, but this book was definitely a winner.

Falling Kingdoms follows the lives of people from the three countries of Auranos, Palesia, and Limeros in the land of Mytica. This land is fraught with tension after the murder of a wine seller’s son and it seems that a war is on the rise. In this book we get to see through the eyes of many show more different characters from all the countries, and this perspective change is done so efficiently that we are able to empathize with all the characters. Because of this connection you feel with everyone, you can’t really pinpoint a villain right away, however it becomes clear near the end and definitely in the sequel, Rebel Spring who is evil and who is not.

This fabulous fantasy just blew me away. I feel like I love this book way more than most people, but this story just grabbed my attention from the very beginning and didn’t let me go. I literally stayed up all night to read the majority of the book. Some characters in the book include Princess Cleo, Jonas Agallon, Prince Magnus and Princess Lucia. It was so nice to watch as each character was developed, how their stories intertwined together and how feelings or connections changed between them all.

This was a story that kept me on edge. There were so many characters and events and it was just such a smooth and enjoyable read. There was no lull at all in the narrative for me and the plot is also full of sudden and shocking moments. I literally gasped, laughed, cried and shouted at the book all while reading. Luckily I read this when there were no other people around… for the most part…

Aaahh… anyway… I can’t say enough about how wonderful I thought this book was, so to save you from pages and pages of what would be a big ol’ gush fest, I guess I’ll wrap it up. I actually went to Chapters before I was done Falling Kingdoms to buy the sequel, Rebel Spring, which I read immediately after I was done. I’m happy to say I LOVED that book as well and hope to review it soon.

I guess it’s obvious, but I absolutely recommend this book to anyone and everyone looking to be completely thrilled and enthralled by a book. This book sucks you in and really doesn’t let you go. Honestly I was absorbed and lost in the world this book weaved and I loved every minute of it! Go and grab your copy and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! show less

https://iwriteinbooks.wordpress.com/2019/01/06/falling-kingdoms-morgan-rhodes/

“Power. It has always been a strong motivator for some. A quest for power - for ultimate power - is the reason behind most evils the world has witnessed.”

It took me a while to start this series. I have a hard time embracing series and books that have become wildly popular because I’ve been burned before (I see you, Caraval).

Falling Kingdoms didn’t disappoint, though.

The story is told through three different viewpoints, three different young people from three different kingdoms, hence the title.

As with so many fantasy stories, Falling Kingdoms exists as an allegory for our own human behavior, weaving in three distinct experiences into one, mirroring show more modern day politics, humanity, love, and destruction.

The destitute and desperate, run down Paelsia has been on a steep decline for generations, giving birth to scrappy revolutionary, Jonas. His path crosses Cleo, a sheltered, pampered princess from the ragingly successful (and very well hated) throne of Auranos. Through their short but unfortunately violent interaction, a chain of events spirals outward, catching Prince Magnus (of the deeply religious but somewhat sidelined kingdom of Limeros) in its wake.

As the book rolls forward, the three young leaders intersect and volley, creating their own alliances and conflicts quite under their parents’ noses.

The characters go in and out of being likable, which is somewhat understandable. They’re all stressed and they fall into one of two categories: privileged royal kids or rundown village kids who have lost everything. I tried to give everyone a little grace but there were still moments in which I got frustrated.

Still, the young adults are far more lovable than their older counterparts and all seem to question the mass amounts of backstabbing and bloodshed.

I’m so excited to see what the rest of the series holds. I’m going to try to pace myself because there are still more books to be published and I’ve burned myself before, ripping through series before the finale has hit. show less

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 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 show more 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 don't know if it's my first reading slump's fault, but lately almost all the books I've been reading were a complete failure or mediocre.
Unfortunately, "Falling kingdoms" wasn't an exception.

If I had to say what I enjoyed, I would answer "a smooth style". However, being able to read it in a short amount of time doesn't mean that I actually appreciated it.

In fact, there are two main points that were really difficult to put up with:
1) The characters
Believe me when I say that I couldn't become attached to any of them. Every time I read Cleo's name I wished to choke her or at least lock her in some far, far place. She seems the only victim of the whole story, and though she pretends to be aggressive and strong at the and she only makes show more people die because of her silly decisions. Someone should also tell her that insulting/spitting on someone isn't going to kill him/her.
Maybe the only one I care about is the sweet, caring (and of course friendzoned) Nic, but since he's just a side character I couldn't get to know much about him.
This is another problem related to the characters: poor descriptions. Which is one of the things I find the most annoying. What do we know about their pasts? Very little if not nothing. And what about their personality/thoughts? Just if we're talking about Cloe, Jonas and Magnus.
The majority of them were even flat, with an almost non existent psychological development.

2) The plot
I simply wasn't able to get involved into the story. There was a good amount of action and fights, this is true, but the only word that came me to mind was "how boring". Well, to be honest also "how stupid". There are some scenes that are really ridiculous, in particular when Cleo is involved. The funny thing is that, in theory, they should have been the most dramatic ones, and despite this I couldn't help but laugh.
Not to mention that, in more than one occasion, I easily foresaw what would have happened.

In conclusion, I would have happily preferred avoiding a reading like this, and I'm still trying to understand in which way this book should be "perfect for GOT fans", like the cover claims. show less

I see and appreciate what is trying to be done but I'm just not buying it.

Everything just felt superficial. Every time something bad happened (or someone died), I was completely apathetic. There is a lot of telling, and very little showing.

I WISH I felt the suffering of the poor countries. Because really, I don't understand Jonas' deep hatred.

I WISH I felt the chemistry between (supposedly) star-crossed lovers. Because I think Theon was a pointless character and waste of space (that could've been used to elaborate on Cleo's basic relationship with her family).

I WISH I felt the danger of being magical. Because Lucia's stakes aren't high enough and it makes her boring.

I WISH I felt the fear/stress of forbidden feelings. Because Magnus show more just spends a lot of time whining about seemingly stupid things, and comes off like a child.

There really is so much potential to create a deeper setting and characters. It was a thrilling book and parts made me nervous.

But wholly: superficial. show less