BOOK REVIEW: REALM BREAKER BY VICTORIA AVEYARD
Author: Victoria Aveyard
Series: Realm Breaker #1
Published: May 4, 2021
Publisher: Harper Teen
Pages: 576
From: Barnes and Noble
Rating: 8/10
When I cracked the spine of the newest trilogy by young adult author Victoria Aveyard, I had the highest of hopes. Here, in my hands, was the latest adventure a prolific writer has blessed upon the world, an adventure with swords and magic and companions not unlike the Fellowship in the world of JRR Tolkien. And then, I began reading.
Realm Breaker begins with a doozy of an introduction. A battle between brothers, with a wizard, a troupe of immortal warriors, and young squires in tow. This chapter was brilliant, an imaginative entrance into the world of the Allward and Aveyard’s most recent fantasy exploration. However, the chapters only declined from there.
Now, I give credit where credit is due, and Victoria Aveyard deserves a lot of credit. She built a world with parallel universes, characters with flaws, scenes of blood and vengeance, and scenes of gentleness and love. The storytelling itself is what kept me going. And I am in it, now, dedicated to seeing this adventure through. But Aveyard has a style and that is it. Her style sticks.
If you’ve read her previous novels, then you may have noticed that Aveyard has a very specific writing style, which includes lots of filler words. A 500-page novel never needs to be 500 pages, because with her inclusion of fluff, I would say there are an additionl 50 or so pages. Realm Breaker didn’t feel that way at the beginning, and the story hides how the style of writing slowly morphs from this masterful first chapter into her usual fancy filler verbiage. I held out hope that it may change, but, sadly, I was mistaken. By the end of the story, which, by the way, is a great ending after the twists and turns this story took us on, it felt like we were back to her normal writing style, which was a complete 180-degree turn from how she began this quest.
I am continuing to hold out hope for her next novels, the other two in this magical trilogy, but we shall see. I do want to say, despite the complaint of style, Aveyard has a way of story telling that others don’t have. She knows how to dig into a character and find those flaws and their motivation. And that was what kept me going.
To check out Denia Books and Baubles’ review of Realm Breaker, click here, and for The Quill to Live’s review, click here.