I heard of Marta Stahlfeld through my publishing company, with whom she also published her novels. She's in college and has written two pre-teen novels called Darkwoods and Pasadagavra. So we've talked a little bit since hearing of each other, and I recently sent her a copy of Young Falcon, and she sent back a lovely review, so here it is:
A lot of people have told me that there's nothing new under the sun, and Mortimer Adler said in How to Read a Book that there are some plots that have been done to death.
Young Falcon was not, repeat NOT, one of them.
A general idea in Elizabeth Anne McKinney's book is this concept of back from the brink. Humankind was thought to be extinct, a fairy tale, no longer worthy of concern, and all at once they're back wrecking an epic revenge. Back from the brink has not been done enough, which is too bad because it is an epic way of telling a story.
Another thing I loved about Elizabeth's book is that her characters are fabulous. The likeability of characters is super important to me - most particularly that the good characters be good and the bad characters be bad, not complicated with depressing childhoods. Another really important thing is that the characters come alive, and Elizabeth's characters really do come alive. Veryan is my favorite character for two reasons: first that he was bullied in his troop of soldiers and he had a depressing (possibly abusive) childhood and was still heroic, and also because he really just jumped off the page. All the characters seemed to do that. If there was one thing I didn't like it was that Elysia was just a little wishy-washy. She needed a little more grit - but then, from another perspective, the other characters had more than enough grit to make up for her. And besides, she was no coward but was downright admirable. It's so great to find a main character that's actually likeable!
So now that I'm almost done with my unconventional book review, I would just like to say - well done, Elizabeth. Five stars!
Thanks so much for this review, Marta!! Much appreciated! :)
A lot of people have told me that there's nothing new under the sun, and Mortimer Adler said in How to Read a Book that there are some plots that have been done to death.
Young Falcon was not, repeat NOT, one of them.
A general idea in Elizabeth Anne McKinney's book is this concept of back from the brink. Humankind was thought to be extinct, a fairy tale, no longer worthy of concern, and all at once they're back wrecking an epic revenge. Back from the brink has not been done enough, which is too bad because it is an epic way of telling a story.
Another thing I loved about Elizabeth's book is that her characters are fabulous. The likeability of characters is super important to me - most particularly that the good characters be good and the bad characters be bad, not complicated with depressing childhoods. Another really important thing is that the characters come alive, and Elizabeth's characters really do come alive. Veryan is my favorite character for two reasons: first that he was bullied in his troop of soldiers and he had a depressing (possibly abusive) childhood and was still heroic, and also because he really just jumped off the page. All the characters seemed to do that. If there was one thing I didn't like it was that Elysia was just a little wishy-washy. She needed a little more grit - but then, from another perspective, the other characters had more than enough grit to make up for her. And besides, she was no coward but was downright admirable. It's so great to find a main character that's actually likeable!
So now that I'm almost done with my unconventional book review, I would just like to say - well done, Elizabeth. Five stars!
Thanks so much for this review, Marta!! Much appreciated! :)
