Falling Kingdoms (Falling Kingdoms #1)

This marks the second book I've read of the Breathless Reads collection from PenguinTeen and so far, I have not been disappointed. And now, I'm making it my personal mission to check out the others in the collection. With Origin I had edge-of-my-seat suspense, but with Falling Kingdoms I had conspiracies, action, war... blood.

Falling Kingdoms follows the story of four young people from different kingdoms whose destinies become intertwined during the strain of peace between the lands. We have Cleo, a princess of Auranos; Jonas, a peasant from Paelsia; and Lucia & Magnus from Limeros. At first I was a little overwhelmed with remembering who was who, because besides the main characters, there are also quite a few important secondary characters to keep track of. Thankfully, the plot picks up rather quickly and kept me interested long enough to focus. Since Falling Kingdoms essentially has four storylines built into one and is very character driven, it's probably easier to review by analyzing the book by each character.

Cleo:

I struggled to like Cleo and most of the characters involved in her story arc. Much of the time I generally found her to be incredibly frustrating and immature. She's also spoiled, stubborn and selfish. But she does have a good amount of character growth by the end of the novel. The sad part is that it comes at a really high price for her. I also disliked most of her storyline. The entirety of the events in Falling Kingdoms begins with her friend Aron murdering a Paelsian peasant after trying to cheat the family out of money for wine. Then somewhere along the way there is a bit of insta-love between her and another character that I didn't particularly care for. In fact, I thought that whole love story was poorly executed given the novel's fast pace. However, even given those dislikes, I feel like I will enjoy her character much more in book two.

Jonas:

Jonas is the brother of the murdered peasant and through his thirst for vengeance, a revolution begins. He helps rally his people and forms and alliance with the King of Limeros to siege Auranos. I enjoyed his story arc much more than Cleo's because he is clearly the under dog of the four. But I do feel he received the least amount of page time than the other main characters. However, based on the ending, it looks like he will play a much larger role in the next book.

Lucia and Magnus:

Ah, those two. Let's just call them Luke and Leia for now, minus actually being blood relatives. Or better yet Clary and Jace from The Mortal Instruments series. This was the storyline that really drove this novel since the prologue is about Lucia's past. Their arc had the most plot twists and turns along with shocking revelations. Or perhaps, not so shocking if you have read similar character situations. Magnus hides his feelings from Lucia and with their story I sat on the edge of my seat just waiting for when the secret was bound to come out. All the while, war on Auranos approaches. What's interesting is that even though it's clear (at least, right now) Limeros is the bad guy, they don't seem to be bad characters. But considering how they had large roles in the conquering of Auranos, it'll be interesting to see how their characters, especially Magnus, redeems their selves.

I really think Rhodes applied the right amount of anticipation throughout the novel. I never felt bored and at times I stayed up late into the night reading. And while each main character did seem to incite moments of great frustration, I liked them because they are all so flawed and do a lot of growing. It's one thing to be plagued with an annoying character for the duration of the novel, but to see genuine progress really makes the difference. These characters are young and virtually "play things of the gods" used as pawns for bigger purposes unbeknownst to them. Rhodes pushes her characters to make really difficult decisions, causing them to step up to the plate and face their fates or destinies. I have to commend her for taking their individual arcs and weaving them together so flawlessly as if it were always ment to be that way.

The biggest thing that felt off to me was the pacing. Time passes very swiftly from one PoV change to the next and the reader is just told how much time has passed in the beginning of the chapter. This didn't work too much for me because I didn't necessarily feel or see the change myself. This led to small incidents of confusion like with the above insta-love I mentioned.

Final Verdict: Though despite my small issues, that are just that, small, I really enjoyed Falling Kingdoms. So much so that I found myself thinking about the story long after I finished. It looks like the next book is shaping up to be even better than it's processor and I can't wait! If you are still on the fence, you could try checking out a sample of the first few chapters on the Breathless Reads Facebook page. But those few, short chapters doesn't even come close to doing the book justice.

The cover of this book drew me in, and the fact that it is a YA high-fantasy ignited my curiosity. I found the plot line to be interesting and keep me reading, and I think I will read the sequels. But what really gets people attached to a book? The characters. And I didn't end up loving any of the characters--though I did end up liking one of the four who are featured--and that, only by the very end of the book.

The book follows three kingdoms, and as I said, four main characters (plus one if you include the two or three very short chapters from the point of view of a "Watcher," which is a being that is connected to the main world but not fully part of it). Magnus and Lucia, who is his sister, are the royal offspring in the cold kingdom of Limeros; Cleo, the younger of two princesses in Auranos, a rich and prosperous nation; and Jonas, younger brother of a peasant who is carelessly murdered by one of Cleo's friends early on and seeks vengeance for his family and his people of the land of Paelsia. The events surrounding these four characters are what make Falling Kingdoms a worthy read at points. Towards the end of the book, I found myself unable to stop reading because I NEEDED to know what happened. This story has promise, and hopefully the characters will really carry the storyline along in books to come, rather than the other way around. There are ugly, terrible villains that need to (and oh, do you want them to) die NOW, and quite lovable characters that you want to preserve (although some of them are killed off in the course of the book--darn it!).

At first, I found myself really liking Magnus, despite his forbidden love for his sister, Lucia. I knew that she most likely was not his real sister, which wouldn't do much for his love interest, but would at least eventually ease his mind when the secret came out. But over time, as I viewed him from Lucia's perspective and saw more of his actual behavior, I ended up liking him less and less. He despises his father, but then chooses to follow in his footsteps. I appreciate the human battle within, between good and evil, but when his character chose to dive into the cesspool of bloodlust his father adores, I lost my interest. There were moments when his inner torment deeply moved me, and it is my hope that in the next books the battle will be won within him by good.

In the meantime, Cleo is trying to develop her character through a series of tragic events and losses in her life. She barely made it into my 'I like you' category by the end of the story, but at least she got kicked out of her affluent bubble in time for that to happen. The dominant outsider perspective of her is repetitive (she was so "beautiful" and strong-willed), but in the end I found her resolve in the face of adversity to be the most attractive thing about her. She is another character who will hold more promise, I believe, in future books.

Lucia, Magnus' sister, is 'blessed' (or cursed) with special powers, but is unalbe to handle it by the time it is revealed. If her character had been explored more fully, I think she would have been the one I ended up loving. She exhibits some great traits--she is suspicious of the seriously messed up people; she is not arrogant about her abilities or beauty; she unconditionally loves Magnus. But when her powers come into force, she doesn't stand up to the one person who is the most obviously evil of the bunch--her father. This disconnect and the fact that there are only a few chapters dedicated to her POV caused her character to fall flat for me over the course of the book.

Jonas, as well, was not someone I was a big fan of. I cared about what he cared about, but he develops a serious hatred for Cleo that doesn't make sense, and pursues her based on that hatred for almost the entire book. When you're able to be inside Cleo's head, who was there when Jonas's brother was murdered, and see that she felt terrible and feels terrible about what happened, it makes it hard to believe that Jonas saw what he believes he saw: a 'smirk' on her face as his brother died right in front of her. There are several other confusing divisions like this between what we see in a character's head and what others on the outside are seeing--what I mean is, just inconsistencies that don't make sense (of course people outside a character cannot read that character's mind). These instances of confusion and the strangely immediate changes in feelings and sudden development of deep 'love' coupled with characters who obviously have very interesting histories that should have been explored further led to make me frustrated with the end result. However, it did keep me turning the pages, and for those new to high-fantasy, this may be a good book to jump into the genre and see what it's all about.