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A review by ashley_mrose530
The Jasad Heir by Sara Hashem
adventurous
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
This is honestly a really poorly written book.
I'll start with what it got right. The tension between the female main character and the love interest at the beginning was spot on. I love the enemies to lovers trope and I think it was done pretty well here. Their banter and physical tension was perfect at the beginning and had me invested in their relationship.
Unfortunately it did kind of fall apart toward the end as they got closer. I didn't feel the tension anymore and I think their banter was supposed to be more humorous at times, but it didn't work. As they got closer, I started getting bored with their relationship. I wasn't even happy when they finally kissed.
That wasn't where my main issues lie though. My main gripe with this book comes down to the world building. It was so convoluted. Now fantasy as a genre is allowed to confuse you at the beginning so that it can all come together at the end, but this wasn't that. At all.
There were too many moving parts here. Too many countries (I think they were all different countries?) were mentioned and their leaders put in as secondary characters. There were apparently two rebel groups of Jasadi plus one person who was going against both of them and I couldn't keep all of them straight at all. There were so many words that were native to this land that I couldn't fully understand even with context clues.
And then there's the magic. Apparently at one point everyone had it but somehow it got bred out with evolution? (I think?) But somehow it stayed in the Jasadi longer than the others and then all those who didn't have magic suddenly decided magic was bad and outlawed it and began killing anyone who still had it. I really don't know how it got from one thing to the next. It might have been explained but I was too confused and bogged down by the prose and bad pacing that I was too bored to listen to it.
That was another thing that this book suffered from. The pacing was everywhere. For the most part, it was too slow. Too much explaining the wrong things that the prose gets lost in itself and I got so bored with it. It kept explaining random wars that didn't even need to be mentioned and refused to explain things that were important.
Anyway, long story short, this book could use some heavy editing and I don't think I'm going to even try reading the second one.
I'll start with what it got right. The tension between the female main character and the love interest at the beginning was spot on. I love the enemies to lovers trope and I think it was done pretty well here. Their banter and physical tension was perfect at the beginning and had me invested in their relationship.
Unfortunately it did kind of fall apart toward the end as they got closer. I didn't feel the tension anymore and I think their banter was supposed to be more humorous at times, but it didn't work. As they got closer, I started getting bored with their relationship. I wasn't even happy when they finally kissed.
That wasn't where my main issues lie though. My main gripe with this book comes down to the world building. It was so convoluted. Now fantasy as a genre is allowed to confuse you at the beginning so that it can all come together at the end, but this wasn't that. At all.
There were too many moving parts here. Too many countries (I think they were all different countries?) were mentioned and their leaders put in as secondary characters. There were apparently two rebel groups of Jasadi plus one person who was going against both of them and I couldn't keep all of them straight at all. There were so many words that were native to this land that I couldn't fully understand even with context clues.
And then there's the magic. Apparently at one point everyone had it but somehow it got bred out with evolution? (I think?) But somehow it stayed in the Jasadi longer than the others and then all those who didn't have magic suddenly decided magic was bad and outlawed it and began killing anyone who still had it. I really don't know how it got from one thing to the next. It might have been explained but I was too confused and bogged down by the prose and bad pacing that I was too bored to listen to it.
That was another thing that this book suffered from. The pacing was everywhere. For the most part, it was too slow. Too much explaining the wrong things that the prose gets lost in itself and I got so bored with it. It kept explaining random wars that didn't even need to be mentioned and refused to explain things that were important.
Anyway, long story short, this book could use some heavy editing and I don't think I'm going to even try reading the second one.