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ashylibrarian 's review for:
The Crowns of Croswald
by D.E. Night
3.5/5 (physical book)
**Thank you again to Stories Untold Press and author D.E. Night for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and feelings expressed in this review are solely my own.**
The Crowns of Croswald was the first middle-grade book I have read in probably close to 12-15 years. I typically read young adult contemporary literature or adult thrillers/mysteries, so it did take me until about page 100 to really get into the style and writing of a middle-grade book, fantasy at that.
In this first book, we are introduced to an array of magical and royal characters - the main character being Ivy Lovely. Ivy seems like a young girl with a poor picking in life's lottery, but as the story unfolds, she becomes a complex character with many secrets revealed.
I really enjoyed the development of Ivy's character, and I think she is what kept me going in this book. Author Night did a really nice job of developing her background throughout the story, and by the end of the novel, I was itching to learn more about what was revealed.
I also enjoyed the development of friendship in the story between Ivy, Rebecca, and Fyn. The relationships, though at some points may have felt underdeveloped, really created a pact that always felt like they had each other's interests in mind. This is always, in my opinion, a good theme to portray in youth literature.
The more the story unfolded, the more resemblance I felt it had to Harry Potter. I would not say that they are on the same level of world creation and character complexity/development, but the storylines felt pretty similar - a "maid" child with unknown magical powers gets invited to attend a school for people with magical powers and then has a bunch of misfortunes start to occur for the child and their two friends. It was a cute read, though, and this book definitely did a nice job creating a setting to be followed throughout a series.
There were a few things I disliked, and this might be mostly because I have not read a middle-grade book for so long, but also because I am a pretty picky reader. There were a few spelling and grammatical errors that stood out while I was reading. As stated above, I am a very picky reader, and it is a pet peeve of mine to see spelling and obvious grammatical errors (though, yes, I know no work of writing will ever be perfect. All writing is a work in progress). The other part was the underdevelopment of certain scenes in the plot or conversations between characters. Sometimes it felt like a conversation would happen and there would still be so many questions going through my head that were never answered. The questions were more on a logic/trust level of the characters, but again, I think this could be because I am not used to reading middle-grade books.
Overall, though, this was a fun read that has me interested in picking up the second book to continue the story. I would recommend those who enjoy fantasy novels and who don't mind picking up a middle-grade novel to check this one out!
**Thank you again to Stories Untold Press and author D.E. Night for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and feelings expressed in this review are solely my own.**
The Crowns of Croswald was the first middle-grade book I have read in probably close to 12-15 years. I typically read young adult contemporary literature or adult thrillers/mysteries, so it did take me until about page 100 to really get into the style and writing of a middle-grade book, fantasy at that.
In this first book, we are introduced to an array of magical and royal characters - the main character being Ivy Lovely. Ivy seems like a young girl with a poor picking in life's lottery, but as the story unfolds, she becomes a complex character with many secrets revealed.
I really enjoyed the development of Ivy's character, and I think she is what kept me going in this book. Author Night did a really nice job of developing her background throughout the story, and by the end of the novel, I was itching to learn more about what was revealed.
I also enjoyed the development of friendship in the story between Ivy, Rebecca, and Fyn. The relationships, though at some points may have felt underdeveloped, really created a pact that always felt like they had each other's interests in mind. This is always, in my opinion, a good theme to portray in youth literature.
The more the story unfolded, the more resemblance I felt it had to Harry Potter. I would not say that they are on the same level of world creation and character complexity/development, but the storylines felt pretty similar - a "maid" child with unknown magical powers gets invited to attend a school for people with magical powers and then has a bunch of misfortunes start to occur for the child and their two friends. It was a cute read, though, and this book definitely did a nice job creating a setting to be followed throughout a series.
There were a few things I disliked, and this might be mostly because I have not read a middle-grade book for so long, but also because I am a pretty picky reader. There were a few spelling and grammatical errors that stood out while I was reading. As stated above, I am a very picky reader, and it is a pet peeve of mine to see spelling and obvious grammatical errors (though, yes, I know no work of writing will ever be perfect. All writing is a work in progress). The other part was the underdevelopment of certain scenes in the plot or conversations between characters. Sometimes it felt like a conversation would happen and there would still be so many questions going through my head that were never answered. The questions were more on a logic/trust level of the characters, but again, I think this could be because I am not used to reading middle-grade books.
Overall, though, this was a fun read that has me interested in picking up the second book to continue the story. I would recommend those who enjoy fantasy novels and who don't mind picking up a middle-grade novel to check this one out!