4.75/5

My enjoyment of this book was over the top. I loved just about every page. I found it to be a fast-paced but complicated read. There were several times in this book that I was on-the-edge-of-my-seat excited to get through to the next scene and find out what was happening or going to happen or did happen (as much of this story involves the characters discovering their forgotten pasts as well as determining their futures).

The only thing for me that kept it from a 5-star rating were actions/reactions by a few characters which were not what I expected. I won't go into any details because it would be spoilerish, but it is also a personal preference thing - nothing that takes away from the overall awesomeness of this book. If I rated it on my enjoyment level alone, it would get an 8 out of 5. ( )

I kept getting Stormlight Archive vibes, which is a compliment to Sanderson, but thoroughly enjoyed the first book in this series. It did take the oh-so-excellent narration by Michael Kramer to fully get me engaged, but once I did, the storyline set its hooks in me.

The only problem that I had was the seemingly utter stupidity of the teenaged protaganists. Maybe I'm too far removed from that age, and just don't remember how stupid I was, but it seems to be my new pet peeve in books.

I've already purchased the audio and Kindle versions of book #2, An Echo of Things to Come. ( )

Seems interesting enough, at least enough to read the next book. ( )

3.5 stars, rounded up because that was such an entertaining read. While the character depth in this book is strong, the interpersonal dialogues and interactions are pretty flat. I know Islington improves this skill significantly in future writing so I was willing to accept it in this installation. What started off as a run-of-the-mill hero's journey fantasy opening quickly developed into a fast-paced intricate plot with excellent world-building and a really interesting magic system.

Read it; just know that the first few chapters are not indicative of the rest of the book! ( )

While it's derivative and starts slow, it picks up a quarter of the way in and finishes quite strongly. ( )