DNF Review – A Song of Wraiths and Ruin (A Song of Wraiths and Ruin, Book 2) by Roseanne A. Brown (3/5 stars)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 496 pages
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Release Date: April 27, 2021
ISBN-13 : 978-0062891501
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the A Song of Wraiths and Ruin duology
Source: Bought for Kindle
Rating: 3/5 stars
“For Malik, the Solstasia festival is a chance to escape his war-stricken home and start a new life with his sisters in the prosperous desert city of Ziran. But when a vengeful spirit abducts his younger sister, Nadia, as payment to enter the city, Malik strikes a fatal deal—kill Karina, Crown Princess of Ziran, for Nadia’s freedom.
But Karina has deadly aspirations of her own. Her mother, the Sultana, has been assassinated; her court threatens mutiny; and Solstasia looms like a knife over her neck. Grief-stricken, Karina decides to resurrect her mother through ancient magic . . . requiring the beating heart of a king. And she knows just how to obtain one: by offering her hand in marriage to the victor of the Solstasia competition.
When Malik rigs his way into the contest, they are set on a heart-pounding course to destroy each other. But as attraction flares between them and ancient evils stir, will they be able to see their tasks to the death?”
Series Info/Source: This is the first book in the A Song of Wraiths and Ruin duology. I bought a copy of this book for my Kindle.
Thoughts: I DNF’d this about 42% of the way in (page 200) I realized I was just completely ambivalent about reading this book.
The book switches POV between Malik and Karina. Malik is a displaced young man trying to find food and shelter for his sisters and Karina is the daughter of the Sultana and heir to the throne. The two end up meeting through a ritual and some strange sets of circumstances. Wait scratch that, at nearly halfway through the book they still hadn’t met (see complaints below on slow pacing).
The world building felt thin, the characters were hard to engage with and I didn’t find the story intriguing in the least. I got sick of hearing about the characters’ issues (panic attacks and migraines) and not seeing them taking any action to cope with these issues in a healthy way. I mean really, just pushing through doesn’t really cut it and isn’t a healthy way to heal things. I also just didn’t like the characters at all; Malik was waaayy too passive and Karina was waaay too selfish.
Whenever I get to a point where I realize that I don’t care one bit if I continue reading a book or not, I usually stop. So, I stopped. Kind of a bummer because I got the second book in this series to review; I really thought I was truly going to love this one. It just felt hollow to me and like it was going through the motions…there wasn’t anything to grab me and propel the story forward. It gets three stars because I only read half of it, but I am leaning towards 2 stars.
My Summary (3/5): Overall I am struggling to understand why this book has such high reviews. There really isn’t anything here that sets it apart from other YA fantasy books. I guess kudos to the author for tackling African folklore and having characters with mental illness issues. Aside from those aspects, there wasn’t anything here that made this a fantastic fantasy read and the writing style is just so-so. I won’t be picking up future books by this author.
