Friday, August 2, 2019

Review - Sophia, Princess Among Beasts


AMAZON
For those of you who don't already know, for past month I have been reading Stephen King's IT. What you don't know is that I had to put that book aside to read a two ARC's this week. So I'm basically "booked" with reads for the moment and the last thing I needed to do was to begin reading another novel. However, that's exactly what I did early (pre-dawn early) yesterday morning!

Last week, I bought the recently released Sophia, Princess Among Beasts by James Patterson and Emily Raymond. And everyone knows how much I love (and occasionally dislike) Mr. Patterson's stories, so naturally you can understand why I wanted to add the title to my collection. Anyway, the novel has a gorgeous art cover, which has been sitting on the coffee table starring straight at me every since I got it. I finally let my guard down and started reading the darn thing.

As far as my knowledge goes, Sophia, Princess Among Beasts is the first medieval fantasy novel by James Patterson. It's set in an unnamed land and centers around Princess Sophia, a young woman with little to no training to one day take over the throne. After her father is murdered, Sophia is sent into a nightmarish world full of half-beasts, full-beasts, and demons when she is kidnapped by her family's nemesis, Ares, who's determined to force Sophia to marry one of his demon knights.

To escape her horrific imprisonment, Sophia must rely on a handsome peasant, Raphael, to help her put a stop to Ares' evil plans and find a way to return to her kingdom.
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Final Thoughts

Let me start out by saying this isn't an adult novel. Yes, it was marketed for adults but it's clearly written young adults. While I haven't read to many fantasy during my lifespan, the ones I have read have had detailed descriptions of the landscapes, castles, and creatures. That isn't the case here as Sophia, Princess Among Beasts is written with bare bones descriptions that has just enough details to get you to the next chapter.

The story has a first-person narrative told from through the eyes of Sophia, who's described in the novel's blurb as being smart, beautiful, and accomplished. She might be pretty but she's far from being intelligent. She's more clueless than anything else, mostly thanks to her shelter upbringing. She grew up with the idea that if you're a beast then you have to be pure evil!

Don't get me wrong. The overall plot is intriguing and I didn't hate reading it. As a YA novel, it's actually enjoyable. However, this was marketed for adults and because for that reason I believe other readers will be disappointed of how watered down the writing is for this fantasy tale. There's an interesting "beast" world hidden in the story and I just wished James Patterson and Emily Raymond took their time exploring it!

2 comments:

  1. It's a shame this doesn't have rich world building and description. That's one of the real joys of historical reads for me so I'll be giving Sophia a miss

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's not really historical read, it's more fantasy than anything else. I agree these types of books should have more descriptions and world building. I want authors to paint a picture for the readers that way we can vividly envision the story.

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