Title: The beholder.
Author: Anna Bright.
Format: Audiobook.
Publisher: HarperTeen.
Page count: 435.
Release day: June 4th 2019.
Genre: YA, fantasy.
Rating: 3 stars.
What is it about? (Summary from GoodReads)
Selah has waited her whole life for a happily ever after. As the only daughter of the leader of Potomac, she knows her duty is to find the perfect match, a partner who will help secure the future of her people. Now that day has finally come.
But after an excruciatingly public rejection from her closest childhood friend, Selah’s stepmother suggests an unthinkable solution: Selah must set sail across the Atlantic, where a series of potential suitors awaits—and if she doesn’t come home engaged, she shouldn’t come home at all.
From English castle gardens to the fjords of Norge, and under the eye of the dreaded Imperiya Yotne, Selah’s quest will be the journey of a lifetime. But her stepmother’s schemes aren’t the only secrets hiding belowdecks…and the stakes of her voyage may be higher than any happy ending.
Rating:
Characters: 5/10
Atmosphere: 7/10
Writing: 7/10
Plot: 5/10
Intrigue:6 /10
Logic: 5/10
Enjoyment: 6/10
Average: 5.86 (which means 3 stars!)
My thoughts:
This was a really mediocre book for me, and I struggled starting this review haha.
So I guess I will just go right in! I knew going into this book that it was a fantasy book with lots of romance. It is quite a common story that the main character has to marry someone to benefit the country, but I really like the twist this book took on the common story!
But I still felt like this book was a bit too dramatic for me! Mainly because our main character, Selah, fell in love so quickly and every time some happened (of course).
So in this book Selah gets send away by her stepmother to find a fiancé abroad. So she goes on this ship and they have a list of suitors to visit. I think there were 5, but I’m not sure. We get to the first one, which was nice but a bit boring. Also I feel like that ended too dramatic, I thin Selah was overreacting a lot. But okay. We then moved on to the second suitor, I really liked that part of the story so much more! It made up for the first part I would say! Of course things happen here, but I feel like the reactions were more appropriate!
I have to say that I’m a bit disappointed that we only got to two of the suitors, I did expect us to meet all of them. But in this way we did get to learn those first two a bit more I guess.
Besides Selah having to visit all these suitors and choose one of them, there were of course also things happening in her own country, which was interesting to learn about!
Something that took down the rating a bit for me was that the last chapter kinda changed a big part of the story, I would have liked it if this ‘twist’ was introduced a bit more slowly and thus a little bit earlier in the story. I know there were some hints towards it, but in my opinion there could have been more.
But this twist did make me excited to read the sequel soon!
I definitely agree with your thoughts! It was a very mediocre read and I won’t be picking up the next book. ♀️
I just finished the sequel.. You don’t miss much haah..