Early Review – Warmaidens (Gravemaidens, Book 2) by Kelly Coon (3/5 stars)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 384 pages
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Release Date: December 15, 2020
ISBN-13 : 978-0525647867
Stand Alone or Series: 2nd book in the Gravemaidens duology
Source: eGalley from NetGalley
Rating: 3/5 stars
“Just a few moons after escaping the tomb in Alu, Kammani and the other runaway maidens have found refuge in the city-state of Manzazu. There, Kammani has become a respected healer, especially among the warriors she’s brought back from the brink of death. Now that the nightmares of Alu are fading, she can finally decide whether or not to take Dagan’s hand in marriage.
But when an assassin murders a healer he believes is Kammani and attempts to kill the displaced queen of Alu, the maidens realize they’ve been found.
Hungry for revenge, Manzazu’s queen wants to strike back at Alu with her fiercest weapons—her scorpion warrior maidens—but Kammani knows that war harms more than it heals. To save the innocents and any chance of a future with Dagan, Kammani must take down Alu’s ruler before their lives burn up in the flames of war.”
Series Info/Source: This is the second book in the Gravemaidens duology. I got an eGalley of this book from NetGalley to review.
Story (3/5): This was a well done conclusion to this duology. This was decently written and kept me reading. I did feel like there wasn’t anything special in here though, events just kind of played out as expected. There were also a lot of repetitive plot devices…make a plan to kill the king, oh it doesn’t work and people die, make another plan to kill the king, oh…that didn’t work either and people died…repeat over and over. This book does resolve everything nicely but the ending was just eh…
Characters (3/5): I never found the story or characters to be all that compelling. They just didn’t inspire or really engage me. I feel like Kammani made a lot of the same mistakes over and over and didn’t grow much as a character. I feel like Dagan was very supportive but was disappointed that he just sat back and watched Kammani make the same mistakes over and over again.
Setting (3/5): The setting was a pretty basic middle eastern based fantasy setting. We do venture outside of the kingdom of Alu briefly but it didn’t really give me a good feel for the world outside of Alu. The world-building could have been a lot better.
Writing/Drawing Style (3/5): This was technically written fine. It kept me interested and I wanted to know what happened in the end. However, I just didn’t find myself intrigued by the world or really rooting for the characters….it just didn’t suck me in. It was perfectly fine….everything was just…fine. I was disappointed that the theme of the Boatman wasn’t carried through the story a bit more consistently. He was in the story here and there and played a bit role at the end but wasn’t woven into the story that well…he was almost more of an afterthought.
My Summary (3/5): Overall this was a bit disappointing for me, it kept me reading but I never really felt engrossed in the story. It did a good job of wrapping up the story and tying up loose ends but didn’t really blow me away with it’s creativity. It ended up being a nice basic fantasy story about overthrowing a tyrant that had a middle eastern flare to it.
