Disclaimer: Review originally posted at www.audiobookreviewer.com
Dylan, a student in college with little aspirations, finds one day a book that will change his life. Kiro, the guardian of a distant world explains to him that this book is the door to Earth, and that Dylan will have to be its guardian, protecting it to be taken by an evil god.
I like reading modern fantasy, and I am usually pleasantly surprised. This could have been so good, but it ended up disappointing me. The premises were good, but the execution and technique were subpar. I had many issues keeping my attention on the book, and this was due to how information was given to the reader. The book is overloaded with very detailed descriptions, so much that it is difficult to know which information is important to keep in mind for later. In many cases, most of the information is not. The other way of giving away information was through dialogues and monologues, sometimes so long and artificial that made me cringe. The characters were interesting and had potential, but they remained undeveloped and quite caricaturesque. Dylan is an ironic and cheeky person, and through his thoughts, the book promises to be funny and light, but the this impression fails when we see the story unfold. The plot is disorganized and chaotic, and Rain Oxford abuses of the literary device of Deus ex Machina. The characters are thrown upon event after event without a clear build up to the climax.
Something I consider important when reading fantasy for adults or even young adults is how hard the writer works to make things believable. This failed a bit for me here, since Dylan leaves everything behind without thinking it twice. I would expect this more from a children’s book.
There is a lot of Japanese influence on the book, so for people into this sort of thing, this could be an enjoyable book. I do not speak Japanese, so I ignore if the languages in the book are really inspired by the Japanese language.
Todd Menesses had quite a repertoire of voices but at times I think he tried too hard. Using hard accents and tones on main characters can be very tiresome to the ear, especially with the very long dialogues explaining everything.
I think this book could succeed when aimed at a young audience, and I am sure Rain will surprise us with future great books if she polishes her style and improves her technique a bit.
My name is Elena. Since I was a little child I loved science fiction and fantasy, and I can’t resist a good novel. In 2015, while wait I started to listen to audiobooks and I discovered the pleasure in being able to read while doing my daily tasks, so there’s always an audiobook playing on my phone. If you see me with my Bluetooth headphones on, please be gentle, I get easily startled.
I live with my boyfriend, which I met during my six-year stay in Belgium, four cockatiels, eight lovebirds, and a hamster in Madrid, Spain; and I like to spend my free time knitting and sewing while listening to audiobooks.
