Banewreaker

by Jacqueline Carey

Reviewed by Coral

Long ago Seven gods shaped the world, each creating their own race, bestowing gifts upon them. At the behest of his sister, Satoris bestows his gift on her race, Man, as well. Haomane, the first born amongst them, disapproved and demanded that Satoris take back his gift. When Satoris refused, war broke out amongst the gods and all of the races. Finding refuge with the less desirable races, the dragons, the weres and the Fjelltrolls, Satoris hoped to find peace. But Haomane will not let him be.

When the words of a prophecy about the defeat of Satoris seem to be coming true, will there finally be an end to this war?

Truthfully, I couldn't even finish this book.

From the start, I just wasn't really into it at all. The backstory to the "Seven Shapers" was just done in such an off-putting and confusing way I never really understood why things happened the way they were. Why did the others follow Haomane? When he wanted to kill the races they had created as well?

There was not one character that I cared about or felt empathy towards.

The story got to a point where it was trying so hard to show that each side in a war has both the good and the bad but I have seen it better handled that it was just way too over the top.

A part of me wants to grade it an F, because I couldn't finish it, but that doesn't seem fair because there wasn't anything horribly atrocious about it. It was just boring and didn't capture me at all. I also considered a C but in the end I settled on just not grading it because I didn't read it all the way through.

Grade: N/A