Review Detail

Vividly descriptive writing and short chapters made it easy to fly through this book, and I found myself eager to read on. The characters are intriguing right from the start, with easy to like protagonists and bad guys you love to hate, and this book is bursting with diversity. In addition, there’s a found family trope, which is common in chosen one books such as this one, and the main character group has strong relationships that are a pleasure to read. In addition, the world building was something I haven’t seen before: the story takes place in a primarily water-based setting.

While Tilly didn’t have a lot of understanding about what was happening in the world, very little was clearly explained to her throughout the book, leaving not just Tilly in the dark, but also the readers. This made it confusing to follow what was happening at times, which was disappointing, because it was so intriguing. Tilly’s character development was frustrating, as she transitioned from needing everything done for her to beginning to understand her powers to behaving in a petulant manner and refusing to participate. While it’s easy to empathize with her in the beginning, it wasn’t as easy to later in the book, when she knew how important she was to the outcome.

The overall story was an incredibly interesting and unique one, with a lot of diversity and action. There’s a lot of action and plot twists, making this the kind of story that grabs the readers attention early on and doesn’t let go until the cliffhanger ending. It’s perfect for the age group, with action but very little real violence depicted on the pages, and I’d definitely recommend it to readers who like fantasy novels, especially those featuring the chosen one and found family tropes. While it is vaguely reminiscent of Harry Potter initially, it stands on its own merit and is a completely unique novel.