Far Forest Scrolls was… Okay

I recently had the opportunity to review Far Forest Scrolls Na Cearcaill.  It sounded really great.  What’s not to like about a fantasy story with dragons and adventure?  It looked like it might have a little Celtic influence as well (I’ve done a little bit of studying Irish and there are a few words in Irish in this book).  It turned out, the book was just okay.  The book has a lot of potential; I just didn’t think that it was where it should have been for a published novel.  Especially not for a book that is scheduled to cost $24.95.

Plot

Far forest scrolls happens in a medieval fantasy setting.  There is a “squad” of squires that the story revolves around, mostly Bellae, who is a pre-tween who discovers that she has a gift for talking to animals.  The squires (and their knights) go through many adventures.  Bellae (or her friend) has been foretold to be the chosen one in the upcoming Na Caercaill, which I think means some sort of cataclysm or world-shaking event.  There is also war on the horizon, which the squires and knights must prepare for.

What I Liked

While overall, I wasn’t a fan of this book, it wasn’t without its merits.  The story was imaginative, and I thought Bellae was a cute character, and she had some nice friendships with some of her squadmates.  You could tell how she loved animals, which was quite endearing.  There were parts that were pretty exciting.  The story was written with a good vocabulary, with colorful words.  Some of the illustrations were good.

What I Didn’t Like So Much

The book felt a little amateurish.  For example, sometimes the characters would explain concepts of the world that the other characters probably already knew, but the reader didn’t.  It made the dialogue sound a little off.  There were a lot of characters in this book, and in the beginning, they were introduced a little too quickly — I had trouble keeping everything straight.  The same holds true for the places in this world.  The book also had several illustrations.  While a smattering of the illustrations looked like they were professionally done, some of the illustrations looked like they came out of someone’s sketch book.  You could even see the outline of the page where it had been scanned.  The sketches and illustrations broke up the text on my Kindle, although if you read this in the hardback version, that wouldn’t be a problem.

The book seemed to have an abrupt ending.  There really was no climax to the story; no great battle that they win and then they have to go fight an even bigger battle, like many other trilogies/duologies/tetralogies etc. have.  They were in the middle of a fight, some reinforcements show up, and then… that’s all folks.  The web site describes this as part of a pentology, so there must be more to this story coming.

This book was categorized as a Young Adult novel, but I would probably put it in the Middle Grade category.  The main characters are Middle Grade age, and there is some banter that I think would be better appreciated by a Middle Grade audience.  Some of the vocabulary might be advanced for Middle Grades, but the storyline itself I think has more Middle Grade appeal.

After I agreed to review this book, it was taken off Goodreads.  It is also no longer on NetGalley (where I received my copy of the book in exchange for an honest review).  Perhaps the author withdrew the book so they could make further revisions (it was supposed to be released August 3rd).  I hope that they do that, because while I didn’t particularly think the story was great, it does have the potential to be a good story.