Review: Spellslinger

Spellslinger by Sebastien de Castell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Eugh.

This was kind of a love-it-hate-it book that rounded out into decent but mediocre.

It's slow, it takes place entirely in one small village and our protagonist, Kellan, is so ignorant it hurts.

Lucky for him (and us readers) his life is intercepted by the fantastic Ferius and the psychotic Reichis. Without those two I would have thrown this book in the bin (metaphorically, of course. I'm not a monster).

Plot: Kellan is a bit of a loser, and in a village where magic is everything, he's having a hard time because his magic is almost non-existent. Then a random, sassy stranger shows up and starts interfering, and Kellan begins to realise that his village's ways are pretty messed up tells her off repeatedly for slamming the ridiculous backwards ways traditions of his people.

I don't really know how else to sum up the plot because there's not really a lot to it? It kinda jumps around a lot and mostly involves Kellan facing down the same bad guys repeatedly. It gets a little dull. Then there's the whole magic obsession and honestly Kellan's naivety bugged the crap outta me. He's been so brainwashed that nothing gets through his thick skull and I kinda wanted to slap him. Not exactly someone fun to root for.

That being said, I liked that he was clever, and that things didn't go his way, and that he wasn't really a hero. I didn't like the arrogance but I did like that he messed up constantly.

His story is kind of boring though, so thank god for Ferius and Reichis. Mostly Reichis. He's a total nut job and I love it.

Side note: this book gets so DARK and I was not expecting it. Wow. See spoiler tag for elaboration: (view spoiler)[ All the tearing and shredding and impaling and broken bones and disembowelment and torture etc was kinda ... icky. (hide spoiler)] It was so weird to have this light, sorta dull, YA magic story then nek minnit BLOOD GUTS GORE SLASH SLICE DIEEEEEEEEEE. I mean, please. Chill out guy.

But back to psychotic Reichis. What a badass. I feel like he should have a scar underneath an eye-patch, you know? He's so violent. I love it. He busts his butt and throws himself wholeheartedly into fights whether he can win them or not and I just thoroughly enjoyed his fearlessness and savagery. I hope the rest of this series sees him claim a whole lotta eyeballs. You earned 'em, bud. *proud tear*

The magic was a bit complicated and not really explained and I really didn't need all the hand signals. Younger readers might enjoy trying to recreate the hand signs when they're trying to do their own spells but for me it just slowed down the story. (I don't need hand signals, obviously. I'm magic enough without them.)

Also, Kellan's family and friends are really horrible. They are terrible people.

Let's face it: besides Ferius and Reichis, I basically hated all of the characters.

I enjoyed it enough that I'm curious about the rest of the series, but not curious enough to go tracking down the second book any time soon. I'll probably just go search for some spoilery reviews to tell me how things pan out for this kid.

It's a tough one to recommend because it seems better suited to the younger readers, but those dark bits are pretty dark. Older readers might find it a little slow. But if you like violent psychopath supporting characters, there might just be something in this one for you.

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