Sunday, December 6, 2015

Girl of Myth and Legend by Giselle Simlet

Girl of Myth and Legend by Giselle Simlet
Genres:Young Adult, Fantasy
Pages: 363
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**Thanks to Netgalley for providing an advanced copy of this book**






" Leonie Woodville wants to live an unremarkable life. She wants routine, she wants repetition, she wants predictability. So when she explodes in a blaze of light one morning on the way to her college, it’s enough to put a real crimp in her day.And things only get weirder…Leonie learns from her father that she is last of the Pulsar, a phenomenally powerful member of a magical species called the Chosen. It will be her sole duty to protect the Imperium, a governing hierarchy, from all enemies, and to exceed the reputation of the Pulsar before her. So – no pressure there, then.Leonie is swept away from her rigorous normality and taken to a world of magic. There, she is forced into a ceremony to join her soul to a guardian, Korren, who is both incredibly handsome and intensely troubled, a relationship for which ‘it’s complicated’ just really doesn’t cut it.But Leonie is soon to learn that this ancient world is no paradise. With violent dissidents intent to overthrow the Imperium, and dark entities with their own agenda, she and Korren find themselves caught in a war where they will have to overcome their differences if they are to survive.Dare to dream. Dare to hope. Dare to be a legend.Book One in The Chosen Saga. "



The Chosen Saga is off to a good start with this book. It started off very quickly, too quickly. Honestly, after reading the first chapter of this book, I put it away for a while, it totally turned me off. Eventually though, I did come back to it and I'm glad that I did.

Leonie is a teenage girl living a normal, if not lonely, life, until one day everything changes. She finds out that she is Chosen, a magical kind of being that comes from a different dimension. Not only is she a Chosen, she's a Pulsar, the most powerful of all the Chosen, and the first Pulsar to be born in 200 years. This is a lot of responsibility for anyone, but especially for someone who had no idea what she was.

While at first she's excited to learn about magic and about a whole world she didn't know existed, she quickly learns that this new world is full of bigotry and hypocrisy. While there is beauty, there is also evil.

My favorite thing about this book was the friendship between Leonie and Korren. Korren is leonies Kytaen guard, an 'animal' that is meant to be treated more as an object than anything else. Leonie is rightfully offended by this when she meets Korren and sees that he is just as sentient as she is. He is full of hatred and anger towards the chosen, and can't understand why Leonie would bother to treat him as an equal, but she's determined to become his friend and its really heartwarming. I'm hoping for a romance between them in later books.

One thing I didn't like about this book is how self hating Leonie is. Most of her internal dialogue is her believing that she isn't good enough, that there must be some mistake. That's something I see a lot in female heroes and it's pretty dis-empowering. Towards the end of the book she does start to believe in herself more, so I am giving this book a rating of 3.5 stars. I'm excited to see what's in store for Leonie and Korren in future books.




1 comment:

  1. Hey, I so enjoyed your thoughts on this book. I found it because Girl of Myth and Legend was tagged as a similar book to mine.

    I especially enjoyed what you wrote about Leonie's self criticism and how disempowering it can be. I encountered the same thing while writing my book and was really challenged my how much I wanted my main character (Charlotte) to go into that self critical hole. I think I managed a decent balance.

    I was wondering if you might be interested reading and also giving a review? You can find a free copy of the book on my website: www.pswgear.com/novels/charlotte-gnoll/

    Cheers and many thanks for your blog!

    ReplyDelete