Fantasy Hardships

The Curse of the Mistwraith is the first of an eight book series. It focuses on two half brothers who posses the powers of Light and Shadow between them. PoVs switch between said half-brothers and some of the other major characters.

I didn't like this book much. The story is interesting enough, but it suffers from two critical flaws that make it very hard for me to enjoy.

The first offender is the sheer passiveness of the two major characters. The few decisions they make on their own are effectively forced upon them by the plot, which makes it very dull to read as the characters are simply pulled forward rather than driving the story.

What makes this worse is the second offender; the usage of future prediction. In a single scene were the resident wizards peer into the future, the rest of the book's plot is spelled out. Now I assume this was done to create pathos of when the (all sad) events actually come to pass, but the only thing it did for me was to completely kill my interest in reading. It's like the book spoiled itself.

Worse, this prophecy then continues to be leaned on heavily, killing off any remaining free will of the characters, making them all just going through the motions. This really killed an otherwise promising plot for me.

Final verdict:

It started out promising, but collapsed rapidly. I even put the book down a few times because I was too bored to continue reading. If you are looking for a character driven story, stay away from this.

That said, The premise is unique enough for me to give the second book a chance. Let's see how that goes.