DNF Early Review – The Unwilling by Kelly Braffet (2/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 576 pages
Publisher: MIRA
Release Date: February 11, 2020
ISBN-13: 978-0778309406
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: ARC from Amazon Vine
Rating: 2/5 stars

“The Unwilling is the story of Judah, a foundling born with a special gift and raised inside Highfall castle along with Gavin, the son and heir to Lord Elban’s vast empire. Judah and Gavin share an unnatural bond that is both the key to her survival…and possibly her undoing.

As Gavin is groomed for his future role, Judah comes to realize that she has no real position within the kingdom, in fact, no hope at all of ever traveling beyond its castle walls. Elban—a lord as mighty as he is cruel—has his own plans for her, for all of them. She is a mere pawn to him, and he will stop at nothing to get what he wants.

But outside the walls, in the starving, desperate city, a magus, a healer with his own secret power unlike anything Highfall has seen in years, is newly arrived from the provinces. He, too, has plans for the empire, and at the heart of those plans lies Judah… The girl who started life with no name and no history will soon uncover more to her story than she ever imagined.

An epic tale of greed and ambition, cruelty and love, this deeply immersive novel is about bowing to traditions and burning them down.”

Series Info/Source: Stand Alone, ARC from Amazon Vine for review.

Story (2/5): Okay, so I was really excited to read this one but I ended up struggling through the first 70 pages and then deciding to set it aside. This was boring and long and just plain hard to read. I got through the prologue which introduces us to a young boy who is apprenticed to a Worker elder, I think Worker’s do magic or something…no idea it was never explained.

Then I got through the first chapter which was ~50 pages long and involved following a young witch orphan who’s been adopted by the royal family or something around a palace. She has funny colored hair and seems to be linked to the heir in some magical way.

Characters (2/5): Boring and hard to engage with.

Setting (3/5): Typical fantasy setting, nothing exciting here.

Writing Style (2/5): I wasn’t a fan of the writing style. In the first chapter we get lots of boring history and lots of the main character’s random thoughts and lots of poorly done description of the surroundings. I fell asleep 3 times during the reading of this first chapter…then decided to give it another go the next day when I was less tired…same issue. Seriously you could have cut out over half of this chapter and I don’t think it would have any impact on the story. This book has serious pacing and editing issues.

Summary (2/5): This was just not for me. Way too boring and the characters were not all interesting. I couldn’t even begin to tell you what the story was about even after reading the first 70 pages or so. Ugh.