Review: Wild Magic

Wild Magic (The Immortals, book 1) by Tamora Pierce

Genre: Young Adult High Fantasy
Edition Reviewed: Paperback
Amazon: Paperback | Kindle
Goodreads: Wild Magic (1)

 

Thirteen-year-old DaIne has always had a knack with animals, but it's not until she's forced to leave home that she realizes it's more than a knack -- it's magic. With this wild magic, not only can Daine speak to animals, but also she can make them obey her. Daine takes a job handling horses for the Queen's Riders, where she meets the master mage Numair and becomes his student.

Under Numair's guidance, Daine explores the scope of her magic. But she begins to sense other beings too: immortals. These bloodthirsty monsters have been imprisoned in the Divine Realms for the past four hundred years, but now someone has broken the barrier. It's up to Daine and her friends to defend their world from an immortal attack.

---

Review:

Hmmm. You know what? Wild magic should be up my alley. A girl who can talk with animals and isn't quite human herself. The animal speech is awesome! From hilarious, cute, to a little scary. The book moves swiftly! The cameos were awesome. It was too wonderful seeing my favorite characters again. Especially to seem them as happy couples. Oh, and their kids. So cute.

So why didn't it hit as hard as the The Song of the Lioness series?

Simple. Daine.

Alanna walked a perilous path. Between her magic and the hand of the goddess guiding her she could have become a Mary Sue so easily. Or at the very least an unrealistic and uninteresting character. It could have gone south fast. Pierce guided the story to make Alanna real. She had to work hard to achieve her dreams. To have a personality that was strong, but able to show doubts and weakness. I could understand her. Relate.

Daine was too unbelievable and not relatable. I could not find a connection. It didn't help that Daine has this magical gift that no one else has, some type of higher power is guiding her (not the Goddess), she's super amazing with the bow, and basically really special. Unlike Alanna I never felt like Daine was real. Daine had a horrific experience with humans fearing her, and it's scary. But she is still human and the people who wanted to be her friends gave her unconditional trust. Yet she doesn't care enough about them.  Basically she was willing to let everyone die and didn't really worry about those who called her friend. She used her magic to do the very thing she said she wouldn't: control animals so they would do what she wanted.

I understand where she was coming from. But I also understood the bigger picture and numerous times I thought her actions were pretty stupid. From what I can understand she was raised human and thought human. So why couldn't she see both the repercussions of how things would affect humans and the animals?

Daine was a sticky point. Because I loved seeing the old characters and the new ones that were actually developed were great. Daine doesn't really have any friends outside of animals, it made it hard to like her. (Oh, plenty people said they were her friend and treated her wonderfully. But Daine shuts everyone out.) Not to mention that every action she did was either “amazing” or extremely stupid. She wouldn't, or didn't, take learning seriously leading to her putting herself at risk many times. (Actually almost killing herself more than once.)

I hope the next book will have her dealing with her distrust of humans, or at least developing her into a human. She needs to be made real. Things just magically happening to Daine. It worked for Alanna because other aspects were in play. They just happen to Daine and it's over the top Mary Sue stuff.

There are so many great aspects to Wild Magic. Especially that ending. Even if it's one of those things that just "happens" to Daine to make her more of a legendary character. It's still the wonderful world of Tortall. I loved seeing my favorite characters and how the kingdom has changed. There's very interesting characters and I would love to get to know them more. Not to mention I'd like Daine to make some real connections, or the very least to have her friendships be a real. Not just a bunch of required side characters.

Besides my gripes this one is definitely another great one for kids. I have no doubts that little girls will connect with Daine.

Sexual Content: Some mild humor, but really-really-really clean. Way cleaner than the first Alanna.

 
3/5- Adored it, just a few minor details held it back.

---

Previous book(s) in series:
Reviewed on BW:	Amazon:	Goodreads:
Wild Magic (1) Wolf-Speaker (2) Emperor Mage (3) The Realms of the Gods (4)	Wild Magic (1) Wolf-Speaker (2) Emperor Mage (3) The Realms of the Gods (4)	Wild Magic (1) Wolf-Speaker (2) Emperor Mage (3) The Realms of the Gods (4)