**Review copy provided through Netgalley for an honest review.**
Moon Chosen (Tales of a New World, book 1) by P.C. Cast
Genre: High Fantasy
Edition Reviewed: Ebook
Amazon: Paperback | Kindle
Goodreads: Moon Chosen (1)
#1 New York Times bestselling author, P.C. Cast, brings us a new epic fantasy set in a world where humans, their animal allies, and the earth itself has been drastically changed. A world filled with beauty and danger and cruelty…
Mari is an Earth Walker, heir to the unique healing powers of her Clan; but she has cast her duties aside, until she is chosen by a special animal ally, altering her destiny forever. When a deadly attack tears her world apart, Mari reveals the strength of her powers and the forbidden secret of her dual nature as she embarks on a mission to save her people. It is not until Nik, the son of the leader from a rival, dominating clan strays across her path, that Mari experiences something she has never felt before…
Now, darkness is coming, and with it, a force, more terrible and destructive than the world has ever seen, leaving Mari to cast the shadows from the earth. By forming a tumultuous alliance with Nik, she must make herself ready. Ready to save her people. Ready to save herself and Nik. Ready to embrace her true destiny…and obliterate the forces that threaten to destroy them all
Review:
Moon Chosen quickly turned into an obsession for me. One of those reads that you can't put down and will try to read everywhere. No really. At one point I begged a charger off of some poor stranger so that I could just KEEP READING! When someone was talking to me in line while checking out I held up my Kindle and said, “Middle. Book. Reading.” (Not one of my finest moments.)
I will be the first to admit you have to really pay attention to the start of the book. There's three main leads and each represent a group of people. Earth Walker's, People, and Companions are the tribes here. What might be confusing is that three main leads for each group are part of the changing point of view, and some other characters. At the beginning you really have to take note of the names as the other tribes have different names for each other. Not to mention completely different ideas of what they're like. Pile that on top of learning this rich world it might be overwhelming.
I love how brave this book is! Touching on slavery, all kinds of murder/cruelty, asking questions about societies accepted ideas, and cannibalism. Moon Chase smoothly takes on many hot topic issues and deftly drops it into this rich world without feeling heavy handed. Or preachy. The ideas and actions of the characters will leave you thinking every time you have to put the book down.
Cast's writing has always been addicting. A lot of people asked me if this was like the writing in The House of Night series. No, this is like Cast's other books. The writing is stunning and the attention to detail is fabulous! Some of the characters I thought echoed a few from The House of Night, mainly the mean girl who eventually becomes a friend. Other than the lore of herbs and the magic of the Moon Mother's I thought it was pretty original from that series. Oh, and there is animal bonding. Companions bond with dogs, and apparently there's a branch of clan that bonds with cats. (Okay, so there are quite a few similarities. It still feels refreshing though!)
Thank you! Thank you Cast for creating Mari! What a wonderful lead. She's strong and opinionated. Watching her grow as a person was a pleasure. Even if I didn't always agree with her actions and ideas I understood her. Romance was not a driving force behind her actions. Yes, there is a romance. It is not the focus though and it actually REALISTICALLY builds up in the story. So that I bought the emotions. Another big thank you.
The other three main leads are just as well realized. Nik is a sweet and idealistic guy. It was wonderful watching him seek the truth. Following him as he started to question how righteous the Companions were is a reminder that one should always question the status quo. Many times he was the damsel and Mari got to save him. So there is that. Then there is Dead Eye, the lead representing the People. The People are known by the other tribes as Skin Stealers. Yeah, they're the cannibals. To be quite honest they're the bad guys. However, I was totally addicted to their story and what horrible plot Dead Eye was scheming up. So chilling.
Cast's attention to the world and the seamless way the POVs all connected took my breath away. Every page turn was accompanied by my frantic breathing as I tried to keep up my pace of consumption. The pictures where I nice touch too. I loved the plant stuff that accompanied the lore and the other drawings as well. The history of the world and the tribes was awesome. While at times Moon Chosen seemed to follow a set of steps for a High Fantasy books it didn't take away from the original ideas here. Quite a few times I found myself surprised!
This is an earth after the apocalypse, but it's pretty much High Fantasy. Not dystopian. Yeah, you could pop it into apocalyptic if you really wanted. The world is so rich I am not gonna even attempt to tarnish it by summarizing it.
Overall I am completely devoted to the series! It's cruel that the next one doesn't even have an expected publication date yet! I NEED MORE. Finally another fabulous lead to add to the latest releases of Young Adult High Fantasy. Not to mention that FINALLY the book isn't revolving around romance or the female lead's need to have a man(s). Thank you. The attention to the world building was exactly what I needed to wash away the disappointment of this years reads from my mind! So what I'm saying is: This is brilliant!
Content Warning: Some of the characters get raped or almost raped, it's not gone into detail. Characters have sex, again not gone into detail. Plenty of sexual humor. Also, homosexual relationships. Of course sexual humor.
I should also toss out that there is cannibalism, and the skinning alive of not only humans but animals. It's not super detailed, but it's there.
5/5- Fabulous, a beautiful obsession!
| Previous book(s) in series: | ||
| Reviewed on BW: | Amazon: | Goodreads: |
| Moon Chosen (1) | Moon Chosen (1) | Moon Chosen (1) |
1 comment:
Actually I hated most of the characters, and thought the plot ridiculous. The only characters I liked were Dead Eye, and Sora. Mari was just annoying. Especially how refuses to help her people, especially the women- they're feeling depressed, but she wants to ignore them? The men are going crazy and she wants to ignore them? The men raped one girl, and she won't even try to stop them? It's not even their fault, they've gone mad! She dislikes Sora, even though she's done nothing wrong to her. Nik was ok, but laamme. He doesn't do anything cool, or have anything special. He barely gets to show off his marksmanship, and his "observance" didn't help him. He was just a plain male lead that will fall in love with a female lead. And of course he's handsome. Why wouldn't he be? Dead eye was interesting, even if he had gruesome ways. I was so disappointed I didn't learn more about them, compared to other clans. And notice how this WHOLE story could've been solved, except for a communication error? And the fact that the Tree People are literally enslaving the Moon tribe, and only just now are realizing it? For such a supposedly wise man, Sol does nothing. And their excuse is that they'll get blight if they work. Fine - why not just wear a body suit???? Come on.
For plot, I just got mad about how when someone's in danger- like O'Bryan, Nik decides to discuss stuff with Mari. And there's not enough running in this story. People are dying, and our protaganists are just strolling and talking when they go to help. And this plot is caused by communication error, and how Mari could've been a legit part of the clan if they hadn't overreacted. Come on people... This book just left me cringing the whole time I read it. And can we talk about how Crystal and Sheena are the one LGBT couple in the book, and of course one of them dies. We can't bury enough gays, can we? And there was no real reason/significance to it.... Maybe to the attach, but not to her death....
And of course there's the disturbing racial implications. I'm not gonna go over them, as you can probably tell yourself.
I rate this a 2 stars, and I'm being generous. I will re-read to see if maybe my opinion will change. And I'm sorry this was more of MY review, then me commenting on yours. I just need to vent. Please reply.
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