My Book Life

"A demon is not an items to be tossed aside like an old shirt.  When you have battled with yours, side by side, maybe you'll understand."

Novice is the first book in the Summoner series by Taran Matharu, and I've been wanting to read it since I stumbled across it on Goodreads.  Not only did the synopsis catch my eye, but the story behind how Novice become published was pretty awesome.  The story was written during National Novel Writing Month and then became a Wattpad sensation, and it's not hard to see why.  Hands down the most adorable book I've read this year.  There is honestly no other way for me to describe this book, but to call it adorable.

Without a doubt Novice falls in the Young Adult genre, but that shouldn't turn you away from reading it.  Taran Matharu created a wonderful fantasy world and lovable, and despicable, characters.   Fletcher is a great main character that you just can't help but to root for throughout the whole book, and Ignitions is about the cutest demon to every exist.

Now before picking up this book I did skim through a few reviews, just to see why people didn't enjoy about the Novice.  At the end of the book none of what bothered other people really bothered me.  Yeah, there is a lot of modern terminology throughout the book, but it's targeted for a younger crowd.  So the use of the Twenty-First Century language honestly didn't seem out of place. The target age for this story could relate language Matharu used. Does the book have a similarities to Lord of the Rings?  Kind of.  One of our main characters is a dwarf and another is an elf, but I felt that's sort of where the similarities really ended.  

The pacing of the book was good.  I never once really hit a part of the book where I started to get bored or wondered why this section was there.  However, a part of me felt like the last couple of chapters were a bit rushed.  Like Matharu was so excited to get us to the tournament that he just sort of skipped  the last month of our main characters training.  Even if we'd just had a chapter to glimpse at the their struggle to be the best I wouldn't be complaining, but I just felt like he gave us one moment of the struggle to train for this huge moment.  Then the moment was there.

My other complaint is the ending.  Was it terrible?  Nope.  Did I like it? Nope.  Why?  Because I have to wait until May of 2016 to find out what happened!  That being said I do like that the book ended on a cliffhanger, and one that had sort of been looming over Fletcher through the entire book but sort fell to the back burner.  Other things were happening around Fletcher and his friends, and his whole reason for ending up at Vocans Academy was forgotten.  It felt sort of right for the book to end where the it started.  It felt like we came full circle from page one.

All and all it was a wonderful book and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I loved a great number of the characters and the world that Taran Matharu created in Novice.  It isn't hard to see why this book became so popular on Wattpad and was picked up to be published.  It is hands down adorable and a must read.  I cannot wait for the second book in the series to be published.  The first chance I get I'm pre-ordering it, and it is definitely a must read for 2016.