2 out of 4 stars
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Adventures of a Thought Thief Part 1 by Beverly Burchett is a fantasy book for young adults. It is easy to read and is a little over 200 pages long.
This book is only part one. The synopsis included on Amazon seems to talk more about the series as a whole. Since I didn’t know that, I found myself waiting for things to happen so that they would align with my expectations. It lead to a lot of disappointment.
We first follow Princess Asha as her younger brother is born. She doesn’t like him. He’s ugly and scrawny. She’s pretty sure the King, her father, will have him put down like other sub-par animals. Instead, everyone loves little Prince Oban. Shortly after, Princess Asha goes missing. For several years, King Degnal tears apart his kingdom looking for his daughter. We see another king, King Runmari, attempt to take over the kingdom during King Degnal’s absence. We see the kingdom of Kenneth discussing invading the Degnal Kingdom.
The “thought thief” mentioned in the title doesn’t play a very big role in this book. Several things happen throughout the book seemingly for no reason. We meet characters that aren’t especially important. While this book was easy to read, it was also fairly boring. It’s hard to give an exact example without giving away any spoilers. Mostly, I was waiting and expecting exciting things to happen that never did.
I really didn’t like that the characters all seemed overly dramatic. They were wise and pleasant one moment only to turn around and snap with rage the next. There was one scene where Princess Asha went back and forth between being an overbearing, demanding royal and an obedient, shy victim. The mood changes were inorganic and disingenuous. On the other hand, I enjoyed the way things were described. I could easily picture the beautiful hills and villages.
This book had a lot of editing mistakes. There were misspelled words and grammar issues. There were also continuity issues. For example, one of the advisors “decided never to wed and instead used his life in complete service to the King.” About fifteen pages later, he has a wife. There wasn’t time enough between those pages for the man to have gotten married, she wasn’t a newlywed or a secret wife. It was just an inconsistent fact.
I rate this book 2 out of 4 stars. Because the book was so easy to read, I feel it could be a lot better. This seems like a good start; it just needs some more work. If the characters were more realistic and the story was hashed out a bit more, I could easily see this as a three-star book. If the editing mistakes were also fixed, it would be a four-star book. As it stands, I would recommend this book to young teenage readers.
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Adventures of a Thought Thief Part 1
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