Hello there guys!
Friday is here and not unusually for me, it means I'll be working the weekend, but after seeing my apartment on Wednesday, I'm still in a planning high! I forgot to take pictures because I was crazy looking around, checking for flaws and measuring everything! What a twat!
To start this week's Friday Reads entries, I have a review that can be counted towards my 105 challenge in the Physical Books from my TBR pile catergory! I must thank LaLa from LaLa in the Library for letting me know about Shadow Scale being a Read it Now on Netgalley and that pushed me to finally start this one!
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I had wanted to read Seraphina for quite a while because well, DRAGONS! And when thanks to one of my bloggy friends I got the eARC of the sequel, I knew it was the right moment to read it!
Seraphina is a wonderful fantasy novel, the perfect mix of historical fiction fantasy and the one full of magic, because once again, dragons!
It's got a brilliantly woven mix of medieval times with a strong emphasis on religion and the orthodox way of it, with saints and heretics and a strictly prejudiced society.
Dragons can shift into humans (so maybe we should call them weredragons) and they're now living in relative peace after a truce was reached between the human Queen and the dragon's leader some forty years ago. But there's still a lot of fear and mistrust and prejudice between the two races. Dragons think humans are beneath them because they are controlled by their emotions and humans think that dragons need to die because they're dragons. Excess of logic versus not enough of it.
In this lovely enviroment we have Seraphina, who discovers she is the only thing that both dragons and humans agree on, and that means her life would be in danger if her secret was discovered. She has rebelled against her father's wishes to have her hidden, and now she's living at court being assistant to the music master and being the Princess' music teacher.
Seraphina is both a study in human nature and how the differences and the unknown very quickly turns into a case of us versus them, as well as a murder mystery! It's also the journey of Seraphina to find her own place and realize about who she is and what her place in the world would be.
I loved Phina's journey of self acceptance and self knowledge and how she managed to make friends despite he need to keep people at arms lenght to keep her secret. In the end, she finds people to trust with the truth of who she is and those alliances and friendship become stronger for that.
The pacing of this book is more leisurely than neck-breaking, but it's not in any way boring or feels too slow, we need the time to absorb the detail in the world. It's such a rich and lush world building and so pieces are given here and there and everything ends up coming together very nicely and there are quite a few "aaahaaaa" moments.
The ending was both a closing of the murder mystery so there's enough of a closure, but there's also enough unresolved threads to ensure we'll want to return to this world in the sequel! I'm just very happy that I didn't have to wait as long as the people that read Seraphina when it originally came up for the sequel!
Very well deserved 4 stars and perfect for any fantasy lover!
View all my reviews
Friday is here and not unusually for me, it means I'll be working the weekend, but after seeing my apartment on Wednesday, I'm still in a planning high! I forgot to take pictures because I was crazy looking around, checking for flaws and measuring everything! What a twat!
To start this week's Friday Reads entries, I have a review that can be counted towards my 105 challenge in the Physical Books from my TBR pile catergory! I must thank LaLa from LaLa in the Library for letting me know about Shadow Scale being a Read it Now on Netgalley and that pushed me to finally start this one!
Seraphina by Rachel HartmanMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I had wanted to read Seraphina for quite a while because well, DRAGONS! And when thanks to one of my bloggy friends I got the eARC of the sequel, I knew it was the right moment to read it!
Seraphina is a wonderful fantasy novel, the perfect mix of historical fiction fantasy and the one full of magic, because once again, dragons!
It's got a brilliantly woven mix of medieval times with a strong emphasis on religion and the orthodox way of it, with saints and heretics and a strictly prejudiced society.
Dragons can shift into humans (so maybe we should call them weredragons) and they're now living in relative peace after a truce was reached between the human Queen and the dragon's leader some forty years ago. But there's still a lot of fear and mistrust and prejudice between the two races. Dragons think humans are beneath them because they are controlled by their emotions and humans think that dragons need to die because they're dragons. Excess of logic versus not enough of it.
In this lovely enviroment we have Seraphina, who discovers she is the only thing that both dragons and humans agree on, and that means her life would be in danger if her secret was discovered. She has rebelled against her father's wishes to have her hidden, and now she's living at court being assistant to the music master and being the Princess' music teacher.
Seraphina is both a study in human nature and how the differences and the unknown very quickly turns into a case of us versus them, as well as a murder mystery! It's also the journey of Seraphina to find her own place and realize about who she is and what her place in the world would be.
I loved Phina's journey of self acceptance and self knowledge and how she managed to make friends despite he need to keep people at arms lenght to keep her secret. In the end, she finds people to trust with the truth of who she is and those alliances and friendship become stronger for that.
The pacing of this book is more leisurely than neck-breaking, but it's not in any way boring or feels too slow, we need the time to absorb the detail in the world. It's such a rich and lush world building and so pieces are given here and there and everything ends up coming together very nicely and there are quite a few "aaahaaaa" moments.
The ending was both a closing of the murder mystery so there's enough of a closure, but there's also enough unresolved threads to ensure we'll want to return to this world in the sequel! I'm just very happy that I didn't have to wait as long as the people that read Seraphina when it originally came up for the sequel!
Very well deserved 4 stars and perfect for any fantasy lover!
View all my reviews
I'm so glad you enjoyed this one! It's been so many years since I'd read Seraphina - back when it had a brown and cream cover! I thought it was okay back then... there was not sequel contracted at the time (or, no news of one). I WAS really excited to read this one when it was first announced, but my interest dwindled as time went one... I can't see myself reading it now. I've seen one blogger friend dislike it, one love it, and you loved it, but meh. That's okay. I do love the covers of these books though :D
ReplyDeleteAwesome review, Pili!
Alyssa @ The Eater of Books!
I really enjoyed Seraphina but I'm a bit stuck on the sequel right now, so much that I don't think I can finish it in time for tomorrow, so I'm gonna swap the review for Monday.
DeleteGreat review Pili! I need to read this soon too, since the second book is coming out soon!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Ri! I hope you'll like it as much as I did!
DeleteYay :D I'm glad you enjoyed Seraphina. <3 Even though you didn't fully love it, like I did ;p but yay for liking it :D I just loved it so much. <3 Sigh. And I'm so glad you did too :) Thank you for sharing your amazing thoughts Pili. <3
ReplyDeleteI loved it too, maybe not as much as you did, but a whole lot! Thank you so much for always commenting so faithfully on my blog sweetie! *hugs*
DeleteYey, I'm so glad that you enjoyed this one, I hope you love Shadow Scale as much as I did :D
ReplyDeleteThank you Anya, I hope so too!!
DeleteI have read this book a while ago and enjoyed it quite a bit. I did find that the beginning half was slow and that lowered my enjoyment a bit, but after about halfway I couldn't put it down! A unique fantasy for sure.
ReplyDeleteYou are so very right, it had some slow parts but it was still a wonderful book!
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