Review: Seven Princes

Hi everyone!

So, I have finally found time in my crazy end-of-the-semester schedule to review some books for you ;)

Today, I am reviewing the book from October's Fantasy BooklyBox: Seven Princes by John R Fultz. This book is a high adventure tale that contains elements of mythology and sorcery. Sounds crazy, right!?

THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!!!!!!!! :)

ALRIGHT! So, I wanted to start off by giving you a rough, spoiler free summary of the novel. And this is gonna take a bit of reworking because MAN does a lot happen!

This book starts out with a bang. Right away, the evil sorcerer overthrows the Yaskathan monarchy. The only survivor, a young prince named D'zan, flees for his life. He flees to a land where a land where humans and giants coexist peaceful under the Giant-King's rule. Along young D'zan's journey to restore his kingdon and reclaim his thrown, his destiny becomes hopelessly entangles with six of princes'. (See where the title came from!?)

Will the seven princes get what they are searching for? Glory? Vengeance? Fame? Or will it all go down in flame?

War is coming. That is the only thing that is certain.

Here, we review book based on five categories: plot, characters, description, pace, and extras. The book is able to earn up to one point in each category. This is then added up to determine the final score.

PLOT: 0.75/1 stars

Okay! So, the plot. THE PLOT! Can you say complicated!? ;) But it wasn't complicated in a bad way. The only reason why I took 0.25 off is because I felt that some of the characters did things to progress that plot that weren't really motivated. It was almost as if they did it just to do it (but that overlaps with the character section, so lets discuss that later). Other than, the plot was very intriguing. With seven or more different story lines going at once that intersected, it was surprisingly easy to follow (yay!)!

CHARACTERS: 0/1 stars

This was my biggest problem with the book. The characters just didn't cut it for me. They started off pretty strong and well developed, but then they just kind of dwindled away. By the end, all of the male characters blended together in my mind. They didn't have distinguishing personality traits towards the end and they all suddenly became the same person (it seemed like). One of the evil characters didn't have any real motivation for what he did. I am a firm believer in the idea that evil isn't born, its made. Well, one of these characters was the complete opposite. He did things purely for the sake of being evil. He didn't do anything because he was hurt, he did things because he just felt like being bad. PS There are NO strong female characters. They go along with the whims of every other character and don't seem to have a mind of their own

To me, the characters can make or break a novel. I just could not fall in love with this novel because of the characters.

DESCRIPTION: 1/1 stars

Fultz does a decent job at painting the scene. It wasn't bad, but it also wasn't amazing. There were times where the writing din't quite grab my attention, but that still didn't stop me from enjoying the book. Sadly, there is not really much to comment on in this section.

PACE: 0.5/1 star

Okay, this is another category where I found myself disappointed. The novel started out at a good pace; not too fast, not too slow, with a good amount of battles thrown in. But towards the end, it was almost as if Fultz was in a hurry to finish the book. It was battle after battle with hardly a page in between. That's kind of rough to read and, honestly, I felt bad for the characters! The poor guys can't get a break!

EXTRAS: 0.75/1 star

Again, this was another subject where it wasn't good and it wasn't bad. I wasn't so sure if I was fully able to grasp the concepts of this world, but I knew enough for the storyline to make sense. That is why I feel like it deserves something, but I can't bring myself to give it a full star.

TOTAL: 3/5 STARS!

Do I regret reading this book? No. But I was kinda disappointed by this one. Fantasy should be bursting at the seams with a fully developed world and characters you can connect with. To be honest, I couldn't connect with the characters because they were so unrelatable and the world just wasn't fully explained.

That concludes my review of Seven Princes! If you enjoyed the review (or even if you didn't), feel free to reach out to me!

HAPPY READING!!!!!

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