Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free electronic copy of the book in exchange for a fair and honest review.
Granted is the first in a trilogy. It follows Sabeara the second daughter of the king of Aveladon, a kingdom that is at threat of going to war with its neighbors. After being kidnapped and then rescued by a stranger, Mid, who she falls in love with, she begins to hear about a curse on the kingdom, which she then researches after returning home, expecting never to see Mid again. However, Mid soon reappears with the revolution that he is Prince Midennan of a nearby realm and is engaged to her sister to form an alliance between their kingdoms.
I really liked Sabeara. She’s a fairly typical YA fantasy heroine, but it’s hard to get tired of fierce girls who are determined to figure out what’s happening and fix what’s wrong with their world when nobody else seems willing to. Mid was fine; he wasn’t horribly appealing, but, aside from him constantly trying to convince Sabeara that it’s okay for him to cheat on her sister with her, he was relatively okay. The other characters didn’t receive much development, but it’s possible that will happen in later chapters. Sabeara’s sister, Jasper, felt particularly underdeveloped for me in proportion to her significance in the book and the importance of the pair’s relationship, so I’d definitely want to see more character development and depth on her end in sequels.
I think my two main issues with this are the plot structure and the worldbuilding. Plot-wise, the book definitely feels like it spends too much time on the buildup. The crux of the plot is definitely intended to be the curse, and everything related to that, but the action instead is primarily focused on Sabeara and Mid’s meeting and relevant adventures, which felt almost like they ought to have been in a prequel novella and then summarized in this book instead. I enjoyed the book once I got past that, but it did take half of the book on something that overall doesn’t feel relevant enough to the overall plot, and which dragged the pace of the novel out quite a bit.
The worldbuilding definitely threw me off. For one, the relations between the kingdoms were explained in an infodump at the stare, which I didn’t fully understand even as I read it. Essentially, I believe the surrounding kingdoms broke off from Aveladon, but it was unclear what exactly the different realms thought of each other or anything. Additionally, the magic system wasn’t explained well enough, so I was quite confused for a large portion of the story on that front as well. Essentially, at 18, everybody in Aveladon goes to a magical tree and receives a power, the potancy of which is shown by the color of the glow that now emanates from their hearts (and thus they’re known as the Stone-Hearted), as well as making them extraordinarily beautiful for some reason. I couldn’t ever really figure out what determined what powers they got or what range of powers there were; Jasper got power over the wind, which seemed to be regarded as particularly powerful, but there were also people able to control the emotions of others and such.
I do think that this book has a lot of promise as the start of a trilogy, and I think a lot of my issues with it will definitely be resolved or feel more balanced out as the story progresses.
Overall, while I enjoyed Granted, I did feel like it didn’t live up to its potential. More clarity in worldbuilding and a more balanced plot would have made the experience as a whole much more enjoyable. However, that definitely doesn’t preclude me from wanting to read the rest of the trilogy; I do want to see where the plot goes and how the curse plays out, and I’m genuinely interested in Sabeara. Hopefully the other issues, particularly character development and worldbuilding, will be resolved later in the series. I’m giving this book 3/5 stars.
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