My rating: 3 of 5 stars
*I received a digital copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review*
Get a copy here!
AMAZON | BOOK DEPOSITORY
Get a copy here!
AMAZON | BOOK DEPOSITORY
Guardian of the Gauntlet is a debut YA-fantasy book by Lenita Sheridan. The first time I saw this book, I was attracted by its pretty cover. I expected to find an equal amazing story inside but it’s unfortunate that I realized this book clearly wasn’t for me.
I fully understand that writing a short story (e.g. novella) holds different kind of difficulty than writing a long one. Sometimes it’s rather difficult to engross readers through very few pages. I found myself worrying about what I’d find in such limited pages of book. Would I find a great story? Would I meet characters with strong characterization? This is the reason why I rarely read novella. I could count with my fingers just how many novellas/short stories out there that I’ve enjoyed well.
I personally thought that Ms. Sheridan had a vast imagination about fantasy world. I could see that in the way she wrote description about each strange creature, how she narrated the sceneries in the story. I’m not quite sure but maybe because she’d labeled the story as a short story, she seemed to rush the plot. Guardian of the Gauntlet ended up having a really fast-pace story ―until the point that every event lost their meanings because the transition between each event and the flow of the story were rather unnatural― yet overflowed with description of trivial things. I know that for a fantasy book, it’s important to put a vivid description on the fantasy part that could help readers build perfect imagination in their mind. But authors shouldn’t forget that readers wanted a story with a well-built plot, too. So balancing both things is the main key here to write a good short story. Well, I’m not a writer though so what I said might not a hundred percent right… This is purely my opinion from an angle of reader.
The characterizations of each role including the main character of the book were too shallow. I even felt that several characters here that I thought would play good roles on the story, just ended up being insignificant items. There was still a lot of space of improvements in this department, I guess.
Guardian of the Gauntlet had a vibe of adventure even though the feeling I got wasn’t quite adventurous. The feeling was more like watching a series of images being flipped simultaneously in front of my eyes. I think this book would be a more suitable literature for children than for people my age (you know, old and all…). It was because the plot was not really built-up causing the book to fall into light read category. Moreover, it contained good amount of moral lessons as well such as jealousy wouldn’t get you anywhere, lying would just bring misery in the end, or learn to take responsibility since an early age. Maybe if this book was written without rushing each event and the author was taking time to build the plot deeper and steadily, Guardian of the Gauntlet might be a good YA-fantasy that I’d enjoy thoroughly.
I presented this book 3 stars for the intriguing-pretty cover and the good description of fantasy creatures that was really helpful in building readers’ imagination. Other than that, I hope to find improvement on the next book.
Love, read, and review,
Cynthia D.
0 comments:
Post a Comment