Publisher: Random House
Pages: 359pgs
The Story
An new vision of knights, dragons, and the fair maiden caught in between . . .
Four decades of peace have done little to ease the mistrust between humans and dragons in the kingdom of Goredd. Folding themselves into human shape, dragons attend court as ambassadors, and lend their rational, mathematical minds to universities as scholars and teachers. As the treaty's anniversary draws near, however, tensions are high.
In her exquisite debut, Rachel Hartman creates a rich, complex, and utterly original world. Seraphina's tortuous journey to self-acceptance is one readers will remember long after they've turned the final page.
The Review
SERAPHINA was one of those books I was really, really looking forward most to reading last year - there was no denying that. Just by the cover alone I knew I had to read this book because like most readers out there in the blogger world I have a weakness when it comes to reading a medieval type of book and pretty much anything containing dragons in them, so clearly I was hoping for a real winner here in Rachel Hartman's debut book, the first in a trilogy. But as much as I wanted to enjoy the story and take a delightful bite of this book with two very greedy hands of mine, unfortunately I was quite disappointed by this book as I couldn't quite feel the magic that others had felt in previous book reviews that I've read in the past.
Personally for me, the characters were the main problem here. Not that they weren't interesting enough, it was the fact that I couldn't quite keep up with the names of the characters and I couldn't quite place them in certain situations (knowing who is who and what they do, you know?), so that lead me to be really confused by the characters and I often had to refer to the character name list featured at the back of the book to check whether I got the right person or not. So in that case it was rather a pity about that. But in the other aspects of the book, while the light romance was 'just okay' for me but I couldn't feel myself immersing in the romances, the storyline and the overall relationships that people formed, so the only real thing that got me invested was the dragon mythology and like any mythology buff, I quite enjoyed that part and I wanted far more of it.
Overall, SERAPHINA is definitely a book I would recommend to readers of Throne of Glass and Firelight because this book contained some similar elements to those titles . . . elements I find you might enjoy more than I did myself. So even though I wasn't too excited about how the book ended, but I might consider reading the sequel in hopes it will improve my opinion of the series so fingers crossed for me!
The Rating
2 1/2 / 5 stars
Oh no!!! Sorry you didn't like it. :( I have this book (yet to read it) proper fantasy isn't usually my thing but I thought this sounds good. Will eventually read it. lol.
ReplyDeleteI hope you enjoy reading it! It does have some great moments in the book but . . . it just wasn't for me sadly.
DeleteSeraphina is one of those books I read about eighty pages into on my Nook and then just kind of left alone for a long time. I haven't felt that compelled to finish it, which was rather disappointing to me as well, since I love dragons. Oh, well. Nice review. High fantasy can get really confusing sometimes. :/
ReplyDeleteThank you! I really love high fantasy and dragons but sadly this book just wasn't for me. :/ It's a pity for the both of us.
DeleteI was so excited to read this book, but after reading your review, I'm a bit wary now. There has been so much hype surrounding this book, and the magical dragons sounds FANTASTIC. But if there has to be a list of character names in the back of the book... uh oh. That just means there's a lot of characters to keep in mind! I get confused easily by character names, so I'm scared to read it now. I'm glad you're giving the sequel a chance though! Thanks for brilliant and honest review, Erin!
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean. There are a lot of high star reviews for this book, which is great. It's just a shame that I didn't come to like it as much as those others did. Still, thank you! I hope you enjoy the book when you get a chance to read it.
DeleteAww I'm sad you didn't love this one, I really loved it! But I see where you're coming from, there were an awful lot of people to remember. I hope maybe the sequel will be better for you! :)
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to hear it. I'm sad I didn't love this one, so I really hope the sequel gives me something more to love about this series.
DeleteOh my--yours is one of the few negative reviews I've seen for this book! Thanks for your honest opinion, though--always good to be forewarned about potential issues. One of the reasons I sometimes have trouble with fantasy is the name thing, actually, so....it will be interesting to see what happens when I finally get to it.
ReplyDeleteWendy @ The Midnight Garden
There is a lot more positive reviews than negatives ones for this book so I guess I'm one of a few who didn't like this book. But thanks!
DeleteSorry this didn't work for you. I love, love, loved it. It was a hard book to form an attachment too though - it took me a long time. I actually like the American cover a lot better (I assume that's the UK cover or does Australia usually have its own covers)? Usually I prefer UK covers over American.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure this cover is for both the UK and AUS covers. Like you I do prefer the UK covers more than the US ones. Still, I'm glad you loved the book. I can see why some would. Thanks!
DeleteI ALWAYS have trouble keeping up with names in fantasy books which is why I tend to avoid the Fantasy genre. I personally enjoyed Seraphina, but I did find it hard to get int at first....and yes, the names pissed me off! It's a pity this didn't meet your expectations :( Amazing review though!<3
ReplyDeleteGlad I wasn't the only one who'd got annoyed by the names. I mean, I absolutely love the fantasy genre - especially the high fantasy genre - but some can be quite confusing. Unfortunately this one was pretty confusing. Still, I hope I like the sequel. Thanks Shirley!
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