My Favorite Books

The Walking Drum
Ender's Game
Dune
Jhereg
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Curse of Chalion
The Name of the Wind
Chronicles of the Black Company
The Faded Sun Trilogy
The Tar-Aiym Krang

Tuesday, February 1, 2022

Review: Raven: Reawakening

Raven: Reawakening Raven: Reawakening by Mitchell Hogan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It’s a pretty common trope; a reluctant assassin fakes their death to escape the master’s control who then makes an abortive attempt to remove loose ends once they figure out the ruse. Fortunately Hogan does this fairly well, giving you a fun, basic hero’s journey with a relatable anti-hero. In addition, there isn’t much development outside of the MC PoV, which makes the story fairly straight forward if you actually like Raven; which I did. 

However, it was the world building that put this book on my favorites shelf. The magic system was something that was well developed and something that I had not seen before, with the source of magic coming from dawn, dust and the abyss/demonic. World elements were introduced as needed and appropriate, always leaving a bit of mystery to keep you moving forward, but as the details are finally filled in, any sequels will need to focus more on the characters then what we see here in order to stay relevant and interesting (there is an obvious conflict between opposing groups developing, but not yet front and center) … for the first of a series, it was a good balance with a few twists to keep the reader on their toes.

I was given this free advance reader copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#RavenReawakening #NetGalley.

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My Ratings Explained ...

  • [ ***** ] Amazing Read - Perfect story, exciting, engrossing, well developed complex characters, solid plot with few to no holes, descriptive environments and place settings, great mystery elements, realistic dialogue, believable reactions and behaviors; a favorite that I can re-read many times.
  • [ **** ] Great Read - Highly entertaining and enjoyable, exciting storyline, well developed characters and settings, a few discrepancies but nothing that can’t be overlooked. Some aspect of the story was new/refreshing to me and/or intriguing. Recommended for everyone.
  • [ *** ] Good Read - Solid story with a 'good' ending, or has some other redeeming feature. Limited character development and/or over reliance on tropes. Noticeable discrepancies in world building and/or dialog/behavior that were distracting. I connected enough with the characters/world to read the entire series. Most of the books I read for fun are here. Recommended for fans of the genre.
  • [ ** ] Okay Read - Suitable for a brief, afternoon escape … flat or shallow characters with little to no development. Over the top character dialog and/or behavior. Poor world building with significant issues and/or mistakes indicating poor research. Excessive use of trivial detail, info dumps and/or pontification. Any issues with the story/characters are offset by some other aspect that I enjoyed. Not very memorable. May only appeal to a niche group of readers. Recommended for some (YMMV).
  • [ * ] Bad Read - Awkward and/or confusing writing style. Poor world building and/or unbelievable (or unlikeable) characters. Victimization, gaslighting, blatant abuse, unnecessary violence, child endangerment, or any other highly objectionable behaviors by Main characters. I didn't connect with the story at all; significant aspects of this story irritated me enough that I struggled to finished it. Series was abandoned. Not recommended.