I've read my share of fantasy, from excellent to mind-bogglingly awful. And while this one doesn't rank so high up on the list of "fantasy I'd rather burn and use as tinder", it certainly belongs there. It's a really, really badly written book, so bad that the author should be questioned on two things: the writing level and the level of the author's maturity.



The plot is faintly reminiscent of Ronia the Robber's Daughter by the famed children's author, Astrid Lindgren; a daughter of magic-wielding parents survive the scourge and joins a bandit den, under the fostering of one father-figure. She eventually meets a boy aspiring to be a priest. Stuff happens. They grow. A raid inevitably occurs. The father-figure, who, by this time, the protagonist holds in contempt - and insults and hurts at every given opportunity - dies in the raid. The girl immediately stops worshipping the den leader, betrays the boy she had grown up with (and, in his good heart, has done everything she asked him to), and leaved the bandit camp, because it's "time to get off the path".



UGH.



The prose is choppy and juvenile. Considering that the narrator is a teenager, I suppose that's one technique. What infuriated me - and will permanently inhibit me from reading book 2, 3, 4, 5, or any of the future releases - is just amazingly horrible the protagonist is. Okay, she's a teenager. But I was a teenager as well, and never - I repeat, never - had I been this awful to anyone, this spiteful, and this wishy-washy, whilst believing myself to be the epitome of "epic toughness", as modern-day boys would call it. She really embodies Hamlet's "frailty, thy name is woman".



Point number 1. The boy she grows up with is really a kind-hearted boy; refuses violence, refuses to lie, teaches her how to read. She constantly mocks and belittles him, thinking that would make her tougher. Do note that not once does she feel she is inferior to any of the bandits for anything, so this belittling isn't to make up for some inferiority complex, it's just meanness. She calls him a coward, calls him names, tells him just how inept he is and then proceeds to order him about. Now, my question is, if he really is inept, why let him do anything? He's bound to fail the task anyway. Which leaves the conclusion - she really is just mocking him for the sake of it. But that doesn't preclude her from checking out his abs. And in the end, she betrays him to the enemy, and goes, "well, he's dumb anyway". Is the author someone like her to be able to write her like this? Because I felt irritated just reading about her, so I'd be raging if I had to WRITE about her.



Point number 2. Her father-figure is a kind man. A man with mistakes, but nevertheless kind. At one point she hits his weak point - his almost fatally weak point - and she feels the trust is gone. So what does she do? Belittle him at every chance. Mock him at any given opportunity, despite his continued kindness. She then cries over all the mocking she's done when he's dead, yells at the aforementioned boy when he points out that her father-figure was a brigand, and that those who killed him was just doing the job (as he was killed by the law enforcers). Right. The enforcers are bad guys for killing someone who has robbed innocent travellers of all their livelihoods and killed them as well.



Point number 3. Throughout 80% of the book, the protagonist fawns over the bandit leader. The bandit leader is quite possibly yours truly generic stock bandit leader character - no morals, abusive and aggressive, and probably a sociopath - and she constantly looks to him, so much so that one of the bandits casually comments that she licks his boots. So when this much-admired bandit leader forbids anyone to go chasing after the law enforcers who raided and killed his men - he knew they were dead anyway, and the camp was in danger - what does she do? GO CHASE AFTER THEM. Oh, and then she packs up and leaves the camp, never mind that the camp has fed her and clothed her all these years. She apparently hasn't thought anything about leaving the boy behind to face the fallout.



She is selfishness and thoughtlessness and cruelty and idiocy personified. I'm amazed anyone would WANT to read about her after this. She can't even bootlick properly. I would have ripped the book apart in my fury, but alas it was on Kindle. I've been plenty angry at characters before but this one takes the cake. Seriously, I have never hoped for the main character to die some gruesome, miserable death in the middle of the book... until this one. I was hoping she'd fall in the ditch and break her neck. I hate this girl that much.



Don't be fooled by the "omg amazing!" reviews here. Go check out the reviews at goodreads, and judge the book for yourself. It's free, so no harm to your wallet; the worst would be you raging and writing an angry review (like I did).