by Marc Graham
★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
I probably should have given this book more of a chance, but I cannot find a reason to continue on.
We have at the beginning a very fast transition of things in Iudila's life, how he's captured, his life on the ship as the captain's plaything, how his life got better... and then all of a sudden years passed, and he's all grown up. That's all sweet and good if it wasn't written in such a manner that left me confused. But it's all right; now that Iudila's all grown up, things will begin to roll, right? Wrong.
At 23%, eleven chapters in, all I've read about were basically in this series:
1. the ship lands at shore.
2. Iudila meets a person who tells him of his destiny.
3. the ship goes back out to sea.
4. the ship finds land.
5. something happens.
6. the ship goes back out to sea.
7. the ship finds land.
8. Iudila meets a person who tells him of his destiny (and spends a mighty lot of time about religion).
Why couldn't the author make good use of the pages to get the story going instead of wasting time on something that doesn't matter? Why not go straight to the point? The words the monk uses also seems pretty demeaning, even though he's a person of religion. Iudila has to plant his seed into a woman? This is like The First Girl Child by Amy Harmon all over again. The writing style is pretty similar, too. I don't want to have to read a book that leaves this impression that it's written to insult women. Whether or not the story is taking place long, long ago, it's not something I can tolerate.
This review is based on the ARC I received from Netgalley.