Early Review – Seasons of the Storm by Elle Cosimano (3.5/5 stars)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 480 pages
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: June 23, 2020
ISBN-13: 978-0062854247
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: eGalley from Edelweiss
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
“One cold, crisp night, Jack Sommers was faced with a choice—live forever according to the ancient, magical rules of Gaia, or die.
Jack chose to live, and in exchange, he became a Winter—an immortal physical embodiment of the season on Earth. Every year, he must hunt the Season who comes before him. Summer kills Spring. Autumn kills Summer. Winter kills Autumn. And Spring kills Winter.
Jack and Fleur, a Winter and a Spring, fall for each other against all odds. To be together, they’ll have to escape the cycle that’s been forcing them apart. But their creator won’t let them go without a fight.”
Series Info/Source: I got an eGalley of this book from Edelweiss for review. I think this is supposed to be a duology, but this book felt like a stand alone.
Story (4/5): The premise of the story is that teens on the brink of death can choose to become the embodiment of a season. From that point on they are destined to fight and destroy the season that comes after them over and over. Jack (winter) has long been in love with Fleur (spring) and Fleur is becoming reluctant to eliminate him. However, Fluer’s rankings are dropping and if they drop too low Fleur herself will be permanently eliminated and a new Spring will be acquired to take her place. It’s a very star-crossed situation but Jack has a plan to escape the system entirely.
This was different from what I thought it was going to be, more of a paranormal/urban fantasy than a fantasy book. It was fast-paced and engaging and made for a decent read. However, I never felt like the concept behind these teens who represented seasons was really explained all that well. The lack of explanation for why this whole “seasons system” was put in place made the story feel really contrived and a bit confusing.
Characters (3/5): I felt like I never really engaged with the characters, even though they are given full backgrounds.. The book does jump between Fleur and Jack, changing POV sometimes mid-chapter. I often had to go back and check whose POV I was reading from because Fleur and Jack didn’t really “sound” all that different. Side characters are given backgrounds and partially developed but they were also hard to engage with.
Setting (3/5): The setting was just the world in general set in contemporary times. There is some discussion around where Seasons are located because they patrol certain regions. Most of the Seasons in this book were based in US locations.
Writing Style (3/5): It’s a neat concept and is decently written but I didn’t find myself dying to know what was going to happen. I think the pacing was a bit off at points and the erratic POV switching broke up the flow of the story. Fleur and Jack didn’t have unique enough voices, so it was hard to tell whose POV you were hearing the story from unless you went back to check the title of the section.
My Summary (3.5/5): Overall this was okay, I didn’t love it but I didn’t dislike it either. It’s an interesting concept but wasn’t fully developed. The characters were somewhat generic and never really engaged me in the story. The book ends at a good spot and things were nicely tied up. There is supposed to be a sequel to this book, but I struggle to see what it would be about since the story was complete at the end of this book. I don’t plan on reading more books in this series when they are released.
