Ascendance

Book Review: The Runaway King

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

The Runaway King
Ascendance #2
by Jennifer A. Nielsen
read by Charlie McWade

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Middle grade adventure

Spoiler notice: The following review will contain some spoilers for the first book in the series, The False Prince.

Jaron’s return and ascension to the throne is precarious, as is the peace of his kingdom. The most pressing threat comes from the very group that tried to kill him years in the past and helped kill his parents—the pirates. Against the advice and wishes of everyone close to him, Jaron sets out on a plan to stop the pirates.

I can’t say I’m surprised that I liked this book less than the first. While the first one had the big surprise going for it by the end, I knew this book couldn’t pull off another similar twist. So what we’re left with is politics and war, which tends to just drag along for me, like most of the previous book did. What seems to be the big selling point for most of the people who like this series is Sage/Jaron himself and his wit, snarkiness, ingenuity, etc. However, while I appreciate the difficulty of his situation, he actually seems ill-suited for his role as king. He makes a lot of bad decisions and basically gets lucky. Plus, while the pirates aren’t exactly friendly, they don’t end up seeming quite as mean and hardened as they were made out to be. Imogen’s involvement is difficult to find realistic, and I don’t understand Amarinda’s role at all (is she good? bad? pointless?).

I did recommend the first book for teens, and I’d imagine that age group would be more interested in the rest of the series that I am. I’m personally calling it quits right here, which is saying something, considering that the book ends on a cliffhanger. It’s just not enough to draw me back. I’m not saying it’s terrible, since I did give it 3 stars. But in the end, it’s just too slow and uninteresting to give me a reason to come back.

Find out more about The Runaway King

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If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!

Book Review: The False Prince

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

The False Prince
Ascendance #1
by Jennifer A. Nielsen
read by Charlie McWade

My rating: 3.5 / 5
Genre: Middle grade adventure

Street-smart orphan Sage is tagged as one of three candidates to pretend to be the king’s long-lost son, in order to prevent a civil war that would lead to destruction by the nation’s enemies. He’s not so sure he wants to be the prince, but the alternative is death.

By halfway through this book, I was really beginning to wonder what so many people saw in it. It was slow and not terribly interesting, with cliched characters and politics that caused the story to drag. Characters make terrible decisions, and Sage himself doesn’t seem to know when to quit while he’s ahead. Just the fact that nothing interesting seemed to be going on caused intrigue as I tried to figure out what kind of twist might be coming that would cause so many people to give the book 4- and 5-star ratings. Then came a twist, like I was expecting, but not quite what I was expecting. And to say much more at all would be a spoiler, so before I get into that, I’ll say that, though I did appreciate the twist and how it made me look back on the rest of the story in a different light, it wasn’t quite enough to completely redeem that first 75% of the book. Also, the narrator is fairly monotone, and while I do intend to continue the series with the audiobooks, it’s mostly because his voice is already so ingrained in my head as the voice of Sage, I’ll hear it either way, so I might as well listen to him reading it. Now, read on if you choose, but beware that at least mild spoilers are ahead.

What this book taught me is that I’ve become far too trusting with narrators. I’ve always known about the potential of an unreliable narrator, but I haven’t come across them often and certainly not one to the degree that this book has. What I took as other characters making incorrect assumptions or Sage being unnecessarily cagey was actually just the reader being kept in the dark. And the sad thing is that even when it started to be revealed to me that some things had been kept from me, I didn’t follow that through to the Big Secret. I made guesses about the Big Secret, but the only way I could see it being true would be if the author used a really cliched trope. When I began to realize that Sage was keeping secrets from the reader, I should have realized…but I didn’t, so the twist mostly caught me off guard.

My guess is that most of the readers of the age group this is intended for would be blown away by the twist and would learn a good lesson in being too trusting of a narrator in fiction (like I did). While I do wish that the first 75% of the book had been more engaging overall, I still recommend this book to kids around age 10-13 and to anyone else that is interested in the premise.

Find out more about The False Prince

See what I’m reading next.

If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!