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desiree930 's review for:
The Call
by Peadar Ó Guilín
2.5 stars. I expected to really enjoy this book. I enjoy stories that take place in Ireland, and the premise of this book was intriguing. Unfortunately, I just couldn't get invested in this book.
The characters:
The 'main' character in this book is Nessa. She is 14 years old, and attends a 'survival school' that is designed to train kids to try to survive the Call. She suffers from polio, and consequently cannot move her legs well.
I felt no connection to any of the characters at all. The story is told in third person, which is fine, but it jumps back and forth to like 20+ characters perspectives. Many of them aren't even mentioned before the story is given over to them and then they aren't mentioned again afterwards.
I didn't feel like ANY of the characters were fleshed out very well. Conor, the school bully, is never given any kind of backstory that may explain the way he treats other people or if he has always been like that. The slight romance storyline (it's pretty much non-existent) just felt thrown in and was never properly developed.
The biggest problem is that none of the characters had a specific voice to me, maybe with the exception of Conor. Unfortunately, he was incredibly one-dimensional, as were the rest of the characters. That, plus the fact that they kept jumping from character to character, made it confusing at times to follow the story.
The plot:
There really wasn't much in the way of a plot. There's a mystery thrown in about schools being attacked and all the children in the schools being killed, but this is all happening far away from our characters for most of the story. For the most part, we're just following these kids in their training and when they are called into the Sídhe world. Honestly, if the character development had been more solid, I wouldn't even care if the plot was so thin, because I like character-driven stories. But to have both of these aspects just be mediocre...makes the book mediocre for me.
World Building: The world building is okay, but for a story where we are going into a fantasy land, I wasn't super impressed.
When I was first hearing about this book, people were saying that fans of The Hunger Games would love this book. This book is nothing like The Hunger Games. Nothing. Not similar in tone, style, genre, or subtext.
I am not sure if this is supposed to be a series or just a stand-alone novel. They left it open for sequels, but even if they do, I don't think I will be reading them.
The characters:
The 'main' character in this book is Nessa. She is 14 years old, and attends a 'survival school' that is designed to train kids to try to survive the Call. She suffers from polio, and consequently cannot move her legs well.
I felt no connection to any of the characters at all. The story is told in third person, which is fine, but it jumps back and forth to like 20+ characters perspectives. Many of them aren't even mentioned before the story is given over to them and then they aren't mentioned again afterwards.
I didn't feel like ANY of the characters were fleshed out very well. Conor, the school bully, is never given any kind of backstory that may explain the way he treats other people or if he has always been like that. The slight romance storyline (it's pretty much non-existent) just felt thrown in and was never properly developed.
The biggest problem is that none of the characters had a specific voice to me, maybe with the exception of Conor. Unfortunately, he was incredibly one-dimensional, as were the rest of the characters. That, plus the fact that they kept jumping from character to character, made it confusing at times to follow the story.
The plot:
There really wasn't much in the way of a plot. There's a mystery thrown in about schools being attacked and all the children in the schools being killed, but this is all happening far away from our characters for most of the story. For the most part, we're just following these kids in their training and when they are called into the Sídhe world. Honestly, if the character development had been more solid, I wouldn't even care if the plot was so thin, because I like character-driven stories. But to have both of these aspects just be mediocre...makes the book mediocre for me.
World Building: The world building is okay, but for a story where we are going into a fantasy land, I wasn't super impressed.
When I was first hearing about this book, people were saying that fans of The Hunger Games would love this book. This book is nothing like The Hunger Games. Nothing. Not similar in tone, style, genre, or subtext.
I am not sure if this is supposed to be a series or just a stand-alone novel. They left it open for sequels, but even if they do, I don't think I will be reading them.