3 out of 4 stars
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The Pious Insurrection is a fantasy story by Dexter Morgenstern. It’s the first book in a series set in the world of Evigonda. Two children set out to save their world from destruction – Bo, a blind seer, and Amos her mute guardian. They must collect a soul from each of the four nations or the crystal of their goddess Naamah will break unleashing Leviathan’s wrath.
Bo and Amos have spent their entire lives in the secluded monastery of Regnaröv. Now they must learn of a world that is bigger than what they had imagined. They meet the Ashborn who don’t use magic, the Godless who reject all gods and many more. They also learn that the world has more moral grayness than what they had been taught.
The Pious Insurrection was, for the most part, an enjoyable book that was easy to read. It creates a vast world with many different characters. It’s a brutal world beset by monsters and warriors trying to fight them off. There are wars and conflicts with no clear good guys and bad guys. That’s what I liked best about this story. It created a complicated world where there are no easy answers to what is right and wrong.
There’s a sense of dreariness about the story. There are people who are trying to save their world, but their efforts are always thwarted. You get the feeling that a great catastrophe is building up, that this is the beginning of the end and no one can stop it. The book definitely left me curious about how the series will continue.
The biggest flaw of the book is its rough beginning. It throws you right in the thick of things without any explanations and strange, unfamiliar words flying about. When I read the first few chapters it was extremely difficult to understand what was going on. It’s not until the middle of the book after I had learned the names and terms that it became more enjoyable. The reading experience would have been a lot better if the book had more explanations about its world or at least a glossary of terms. You almost have to read it twice to truly understand the story.
Another flaw is that the two main characters lacked agency. Throughout the book, they’re either kidnapped by someone or used as pawns in someone else’s game. They experience the world around them, but they never affect it themselves. The rest of the characters come and go, so there’s no hero that fights for something.
Overall, The Pious Insurrection is a good book, but I would have liked it a lot more if it had a better beginning. Therefore I give it 3 out of 4 stars. There were only two spelling errors that I noticed. Other than that the book was well edited. I do think it’s a story that fans of epic fantasy would enjoy and that it can grow into a great series.
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The Pious Insurrection
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