Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Review: Seeker by Arwen Elys Dayton

Today I'm reviewing the YA fantasy novel Seeker by Arwen Elys Dayton.  The cover of this book caught my eye & I was able to receive an ARC from NetGalley.  Thank you to Random House Kids for the opportunity to read this fantastic novel!

Book Blurb (Taken from the Amazon page):  
The night Quin Kincaid takes her Oath, she will become what she has trained to be her entire life. She will become a Seeker. This is her legacy, and it is an honor.  
   As a Seeker, Quin will fight beside her two closest companions, Shinobu and John, to protect the weak and the wronged. Together they will stand for light in a shadowy world.
   And she'll be with the boy she loves--who's also her best friend.
   But the night Quin takes her Oath, everything changes.
   Being a Seeker is not what she thought. Her family is not what she thought. Even the boy she loves is not who she thought.

   And now it's too late to walk away. 

Rating: **** (4/5)

Review

I'll be honest, it took me about two chapters to get into this book, but as soon as I did - I was hooked. It took me longer than I wanted to finish it, but sometimes life gets in the way.  This book was awesome.  I'm a huge fan of fantasy novels (& I tend to have a natural willingness to suspend belief in order to enjoy the fantasy aspect of such books) and this has been added to the list of favorites.  

I know it's been getting mixed reviews, but I'm not sure why - I haven't looked; I didn't want my opinion clouded while I was still reading it.  After I finished I could have gone to look, but I'm still enjoying the high of finishing a really great book, so I'm going to ignore anyone who says this isn't a great read.

The world-building is skillfully done, with the fantastic elements woven into reality with skill and a minimum of necessary explanation.  There are awesome fight scenes (the book actually opens with a fight scene involving Quin).  I was emotionally invested with the characters & found myself rooting for a character that I didn't think I would (because the character development is just so wonderfully executed).  That's how great this book is -- it changed my mind about the characters.  Do you know how rare that is?  Let me tell you - it's pretty rare.

This is billed as a YA book, but I think that older teens would do better with some of the topics in this novel. Seeker explores loss, PTSD, self-exploration, self-discovery, what it means to be a good person, suicidal thoughts, prostitution, and more.  There are so many different points of view on each of these topics that it really gives the reader multiple perspectives & allows the reader to explore these (sometimes taboo) topics in a few different ways, rather than showing a narrow-minded view.  That's something I really love; you see the character motivations and being to understand the choices they made.      

I was disappointed when it was over; I want there to be more.  Thankfully, there will be. The second book in the series, Traveler will be out Spring 2016.  

As it so happens...Seeker is released TODAY (2/10/15) & is available at the following stores:

Amazon (Kindle)

Check out her beautiful website (there's a note on there about Seeker maybe turning into a movie!) & follow her on Twitter!

xoxo

2 comments:

  1. You know it's a good book when it ends, and you want more!

    Denise

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    Replies
    1. I agree! The end of this book definitely left me wanting more!

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