>

1 août 2016

REVIEW : Stolen Songbird by Danielle L. Jensen

17926775
Stolen Songbird - Danielle L. Jensen
Publisher : Strange Chemistry
Release Date : April 1st 2014
Genres : YA, Fantasy
Pages : 469
Rating : ★★☆☆☆

For five centuries, a witch’s curse has bound the trolls to their city beneath the mountain. When Cécile de Troyes is kidnapped and taken beneath the mountain, she realises that the trolls are relying on her to break the curse.

Cécile has only one thing on her mind: escape. But the trolls are clever, fast, and inhumanly strong. She will have to bide her time…

But the more time she spends with the trolls, the more she understands their plight. There is a rebellion brewing. And she just might be the one the trolls were looking for...


 This book started off pretty well... And crashed itself to the ground.

The main character, Céline, gets kidnapped and sold to trolls. According to a prophecy, bonding her to the prince should break the curse... But things don't work out as it should.

Céline is a strong and badass heroine. Don't get me wrong, she's no Celeana Sardothien. She can't fight but her intelligence makes up for it. She is very clever. She gets mixed, despite herself, into the trolls' politics and the least I can say is, the girl can think. She has a good instinct and knows how and when to make the right moves. Also, she can pick locks, how badass is that ? It's refreshing to read about a different kind of heroine.

She's bonded against her will to a troll prince (not a spoiler it's in the description !). The only problem is... Even though he's handsome and perfect and oh my god his eyes are so silver... He's a troll. I mean seriously, I don't even understand how a girl can fall in love with a vampire but a troll ?!
. Sorry for all of the trolls reading this. I know what you're going to say "At least it's original !" and my friend you are absolutely right. The only problem is, the author didn't make me forget this image. She didn't immerse me in the romance. I didn't feel invested in the story and I didn't particularly care for the characters.

Another issue I had was the so called "romance" in this story. And no it's about him being a troll this time. The thing is, they barely speak. They spend like two minutes in the same room everyday and Céline fell in love with him... Overnight. I actually checked to see if I had missed some pages. Tristan too is, out of the blue, crazy about her. And by crazy I mean insane at some point. There was a completely useless scene where he becomes super jealous and overreacts and for what ? The girl is trapped, she can't go anywhere ! But yes, he cares for his people and at the same time he's between two stools but he's just not charismatic nor interesting. His perspective was supposed to enhance the mystery but it was useless. By reading a prince's point of view, I at least want some political thing going on. Plans, traps, betrayals or... whatever.

Then, there is this bond thing. Basically, it's a very powerful thing that makes you feel what the other feels. This bond feels more like a curse to me. You can have it once in a lifetime and if the other dies... Death or eternal sorrow. I wished it was more explored. It didn't feel useful since you can't put the emotions into context, you just feel them and speculate about what might have happened.

I know I say that a lot but this book had a lot of potential. It could have been so great if the romance was more balanced with the mysterious and political stuff going on. I wanted to feel a roller-coaster of emotions (the bond is about that, right ?) but instead, I felt boredom and I wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible.

Aucun commentaire:

Enregistrer un commentaire