The Awakened: Book One [Kindle Edition]

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

The Awakened: Book One [Kindle Edition]

By : Jason Tesar
List Price : ~~$0.99~~
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Customer Reviews

I really like fiction/fantasy books like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Ranger's Apprentice, etc..., and I'm very loyal. The problem I've had in the past was there are too many copied fantasy series too similar to already established series (i.e. coming-of-age boy just finding out he's a wizard, or adventurers with a dwarf and elf, and all these books about vampire or werewolf sex - thanks to the Twilight series I suspect, etc...)
It takes me a while to warm up to a new book, so once I find a series, I stick with it. I downloaded this book to my kindle because it was free - I figured I had nothing to lose, and I'm happy I did. The Awakened is a very well written original story that kept me guessing throughout the entire book. I didn't know who the main protagonist was until I was well into the book, and just when I thought I was jaded to any plot-twist, the twist at the end - it made perfect sense! How could I have missed it!
I don't want to give away the story, all I'm saying is that if you like action packed fiction/ fantasy with a little political intrigue/conspiracy, then you will really like this book.

So I bought this book unsure of what to expect. I read the book description, thought, OK, not what I usually look for in a book, but I'll try it. Read the reviews (mostly 5 stars) and decided that maybe it's better than I was already starting to think.
I painstakingly managed to get all the way through the book, and am still struggling to figure out why it got such great reviews...
WRITING: The author's writing style isn't really all that great, it's not very engaging, I found that the huge amount of detail is just uninteresting and unnecessary, and that his use of vocabulary is simple and sometimes repetitive (maybe it's just me, but i don't like reading the same word 4 times within 3 sentences).
CHARACTERS: The characters in the story aren't interesting and they all act in a similar predictable manner. They don't set anything into motion and their individual personalities aren't well defined. Basically, they all just sit around and wait for the un-cataclysmic events in this book to happen.
PLOT: The plot of this book was downright boring...I kept waiting for something to happen that would throw everything off balance and create that "and the plot thickens..." moment, but it simply never happened. Mostly, I felt as if i were constantly reading about the character waking up, doing something like eating breakfast or rolling over, and thinking about something uninteresting, and then ghosting through the rest of his/her day. The most interesting pages were probably the last two, when something mildly suspenseful actually happened, and just when the book started to engage me for the first time, it abruptly ended.
In short, this book really was just one big, long, boring intro to the rest of the series. I wouldn't recommend it, and based on the quality of this first book, I probably won't read the 2nd and 3rd installments.