Review Detail

There I said it. I feel that Flavia Bujor had potential at that age. The world that she created was enjoyable as were several of the characters and concepts. The plot had potential but I feel that Flavia completely massacred it.

Maybe Ms. Bujor felt that she could pull off so many subplots at the same time, but I'm afraid that she wasn't quite able to. Instead, I felt slightly confused at the conclusion. In addition, the characters were not fully thought out. I feel that she just picked three stones, borrowed the names from those stones, imagined what the characters would look like [and from what I gathered from the book, the only adjective that came to her mind was 'beautiful'] and just decided to slap them onto a page. 

The characterization was drab and had she fully constructed and thought out her characters in the very beginning, instead of merely making them Mary Sue-like and a fantastic example of common stereotypes, then there could have been room for character development.

I feel that there should have been some sort of catalyst in Opal's life which made her so cold-hearted and generally, closed off. And if there was one, it should have been mentioned. I mean, no one just starts being that way unless they've been under a bad influence, suffered some sort of emotional trauma or just enjoy taking themselves that seriously.

Jade was a sadly drab character and while Amber was tolerable, she was just cliche. All the personalities seemed borrowed and none of the characters had anything that made them, them! No aspect of their personality made them a particularly memorable character.

In addition, I feel that the author used horribly cliche terms. Armies of Darkness? Armies of Light? That's fine. But CHOSEN ONE?! That is so friggin cliche, its not even funny.

I felt that Ms. Bujor had a spectacular plot, but it just seemed that when it came down to actually writing it, it just fell apart. 

This book would have turned out wonderfully had she either gotten a better editor or waited a few years for her skills to develop. However, had she waited a few years, she would not have offered the inspiration that she did to hundreds of young, aspiring writers all over the world. [including me]

I applaud Flavia Bujor on a spectacular debut project. I wish her good luck on all future endeavors and can't wait to read her second novel.