Dazzled by Books

"Falling Kingdoms" by Morgan Rhodes was our second book club pick. I actually ended up listening to the audiobook more than reading the book itself. I will cover the audiobook towards the end because I have thoughts on that too.

I feel like I read this a bit late. I think if I would have read this when it came out, I probably would have been more impressed. Since I Read this years later, I feel like there is a lot better fantasy books out there. With that being said, I don't think it was a bad book, just not the greatest.

I am always looking for some good fantasy books. I read a lot of dystopian but I like to mix it up with some fantasy and contemporary too. I have a desire to keep myself rounded. With this being my newest fantasy try I was wishing for more fantasy elements and less drama.

What I liked:

• I love that two of the leads are women. I tend to find that a lot of fantasy books have male leads, so I do like when the genre gets mixed up a bit and there are female leads.


• I love the cover. I do think this should count for something.


• I am intrigued by the world. I don't think the world building was terrific but I am very curious about it.


• Magic. I want to know more.

What I disliked:

• Why are there so many characters? I feel like "Falling Kingdoms" had way too many characters. I had a hard time trying to keep up with everyone. I feel like it didn't give the reader enough time to get to know the characters.


• So many different plots and sub-plots. I feel like this book had a lot of things going on. I didn't know what to focus on. I was listening to the audiobook and I finally had to give up on keeping track of the kingdoms, so that way I could just try to keep track of the characters. It felt like every character had its own plot and several sub-plots. I think there is way too much going on.


• The magic was confusing and not focused on much. I really want to know more. I hope it develops better.


• All the blackmailing. I have never read a book with so much blackmail. Don't the characters have better things to do?

Wrap up:

I am interested in the series enough to read the next one. I really hope that the story line improves because I am not impressed at this point in time. I feel like "Falling Kingdoms" is no where near as good as some of the other fantasy stories out there. Like I said, I am interested in finding out what happens next, so it does have that going for it.

The audiobook was really confusing in the beginning. I feel like I finally got a hang of it a few chapters in but it was very hard to keep track of all the characters and kingdoms on the audiobook.