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This book was disappointing.

I read it with the rest of my grimdark book club and we all hated it. The book is a boring mess.

Imagine youre reading the worst possible version of the first 200 pages of eye of the world. But no beltine, the villagers eat bug bread, and emonds field gets captured by the trollocs, and then brought to the mountains and made into slaves. Thats the premise of this book. Thats all you get. And thats supposed to stand alone as a first book in a trilogy. Thats not even an act one in a standalone in 2024. If that was all thats wrong with this novel, it still fails.

The only theme work revolves around Diens dad and the advice he gives her. Basically dont give into base shit—dont give up your moral values, no matter what happens and think before you act. Well, all of that goes out the window before the book is done. No meat.

Theres another part where the slaves discover a dragon but the dragon is never reintroduced in the conclusion of the story. And throughout the book, the structure of each chapter is virtually the same except for the beginning and end. Its like there wasnt enough content to fill 200 pages so Hayes just keeps writing the same thing over and over with meaningless differences between them, masquerading as a shallow attempt at character work. The writing itself is pretty bad. The entire thing feels like a 13 year old influenced by Sanderson and Diablo but trying to write something grim and edgy.

This is easily the worst book I read this year and probably the worst first experience of an author Ive ever had.