Review – Reign of the Fallen by Sarah Glenn Marsh (3.5/5 stars)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 384 pages
Publisher: Razorbill
Release Date: January 23, 2018
ISBN-13: 978-0448494395
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Reign of the Fallen series
Source: Borrowed from Library
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
“Odessa is one of Karthia’s master necromancers, catering to the kingdom’s ruling Dead. Whenever a noble dies, it’s Odessa’s job to raise them by retrieving their soul from a dreamy and dangerous shadow world called the Deadlands. But there is a cost to being raised: the Dead must remain shrouded. If even a hint of flesh is exposed, a grotesque transformation begins, turning the Dead into terrifying, bloodthirsty Shades.
A dramatic uptick in Shade attacks raises suspicions and fears around the kingdom. Soon, a crushing loss of one of her closest companions leaves Odessa shattered, and reveals a disturbing conspiracy in Karthia: Someone is intentionally creating Shades by tearing shrouds from the Dead–and training them to attack. Odessa is forced to contemplate a terrifying question: What if her magic is the weapon that brings the kingdom to its knees?
Fighting alongside her fellow mages–and a powerful girl as enthralling as she is infuriating–Odessa must untangle the gruesome plot to destroy Karthia before the Shades take everything she loves.”
This is the first book in the Reign of the Fallen series by Marsh. I really thoughr the premise of this series sounded intriguing and was eager to read it. It was a decent read but I found that the pace of the story was pretty slow and the way things wrapped up was too predictable.
The beginning of the story is intriguing. We are introduced to a world where people are commonly brought back from from the dead to continue on with their lives. Change is suppressed in society and the dead must stay cloaked lest they turn into evil Shades.
The middle of the book drags quite a bit. Our heroine loses someone important to her and descends into a time of inaction and drug addiction. I didn’t mind this part of the story and liked how her friends and her own determination helped her through all of this. However, this section just went on for way too long.
The ending was incredibly predictable and I was surprised it took our heroine so long to figure out who was behind the Shade attacks. The ending wraps things up pretty well and I didn’t feel any need to read more about these characters when I was done with the book.
Overall this was an okay book. The premise is creative and intriguing and there are some well done action scenes throughout. The pacing of the story is a bit off and I found the ending to be way too predictable. I would tentatively recommend, but I personally wasn’t intrigued enough to continue with the series.
This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– New Release Reading Challenge
– Goodreads Reading Challenge