The Lost City by Amanda Hocking
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I voluntarily read and reviewed an ARC of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
I have a confession to make. I haven’t had the opportunity or time to check out Hocking’s Trylle Trilogy or Kanin Chronicles and I think that led to some confusion when I read this book, The Lost City.
I felt very out of place and could tell that I was missing the bigger picture of this story. Nonetheless, I will give my honest review of Hocking’s newest book.
Let’s start with the characters. They were all very well developed and had a lot of depth. I appreciate the author’s dedication to creating characters that weren’t just mere stock personalities like one can find in so many other fantasy stories. You know what I’m talking about; you have the pretty one, the one with the attitude, the naïve one, the handsome guy etc.
All these character were present in this story, but there was more to them than just their one-word description, which had me constantly wonder, if I could really trust this character, was there more than meets the eye and do they have some sort of personal agenda? They kept it interesting.
I sometimes liked the protagonist and I sometimes didn’t. I have seen in recent new publications the move away from the pretty, special snowflake type female protagonist, who is just physically so perfect it made the reader sometimes sick, to the more relatable female protagonist, who is a bit more curvy and does not sport perfectly symmetrical features. I loved it.
I wasn’t quite sure about the plot. The title of the book said one thing, but the actual story seemed more focused on something else. It confused me and had me wondering when the action would really kick in.
It never really did. It was a very in-depth, info-overload, explain everything in detail and let the reader wait for the action type story. It felt like a book-long introduction to the actual story. A sort of set-up of what is to come in later installments.
For someone, who is notoriously impatient for the action to start, this was a bit of a test of patience for me.
I really liked the writing style, though. It was easy to follow. It had a nice flow and it was able to let me picture all the settings in a lot of detail.
Overall, as I said before, I wish I had been more familiar with this world before plunging head-first into this new series. It was entertaining enough, but it didn’t have me obsessing over it. I would suggest it to anyone familiar with Hocking’s Trylle Trilogy or Kanin Chronicles.
