DNF. Somewhere around p. 100. The only reason I read that far was killing time while I was dying my hair. I really lost interest very quickly.

This was another one of my series-sampling audio listens, to see if I might want to pursue it in print someday.

Audio Narration
The narrator is Nick Podehl. My initial reaction was “ugh” because he was so melodramatic. I usually don’t enjoy the more melodramatic narrators. However, once I got a little further into the story and things took an unexpected turn, I decided he worked pretty well for the tone of the story. There’s a lot of humor in it and he did well with that, and he also did well with distinguishing the different characters. My biggest complaint through the end was his voicing of female characters. He’s one of those narrators who tries too hard when voicing the opposite sex, instead of just speaking a little softer (for men voicing women) or deeper (for women voicing men). The women all came cross as fake-girl-pouty, fake-girl-flirty, or fake-girl-overly-timid. The pouty/flirty/timid did fit in some cases, but I thought it was overdone and it sometimes distracted me. Still, it wasn’t really a horrible narration and I wouldn’t avoid another audiobook that he had narrated if it was something I otherwise wanted to listen to.

Story
Aside from the brief and interesting prologue, the main story kicks off with the feel of a very tried and true epic fantasy story. Mathias is the chosen one, the only hope the world has for survival against an as-yet-unknown enemy. The whole thing was feeling overdone and familiar, but soon after Mathias learns of this, the story took a turn that I didn’t expect at all. I did guess Mathias’ head would start talking to Aaslo because I remembered the prologue, but I didn’t guess Mathias would die in the first place.

I’d like to say I laughed my head off, but in truth I just chuckled a lot. Some of the dialogue was quite funny, and I absolutely loved the horse named Dolt. Dolt didn’t get nearly enough page time! I would have liked more of the Marquis too. The story held my interest well and I liked or was at least interested in the characters. It could have been a bit longer, really. It felt almost too short. The end isn’t a complete cliff hanger, but there are a lot of plot threads left hanging and several open questions.

I did think some of the humor was a little forced, despite making me chuckle, because Aaslo kept speaking out loud to Mathias, causing confusion for the people around him who couldn’t hear Mathias, and yet Mathias clearly responded to things Aaslo had only thought in his head, so Aaslo seemed a bit dense to not figure out he could have just replied to Mathias in his head. Although it made for some funny dialogue, it wasn’t believable and therefore pulled me out of the story. I also wondered how Mathias could see what was going on when his head was in a bag. Even though there's reason for doubt (or at least Aaslo thought so) that the voice was coming from Mathias at all, the voice did stop when Aaslo lost the bag, so the head did seem to be the source. Hopefully all of my many Mathias questions will be answered in a future book.

I plan to come back to this in print someday when the series is complete. It was pretty fun and I’d like to see where the story goes next and hopefully get more answers. ( )

I really enjoyed the way this story seems to disrupt and play with the ideas of prophecy, but it's the sharp characterization that really drew me in. I'll have to pick up the next in the series. ( )

Oh I loved this so much. The story starts out like your typical high fantasy and then quickly shows you that it is anything but typical.
I loved the direction the story went with the “main character” never have I been so surprised with how this particular character unfolded.

The world building as pretty spot on, a few times toward the end it did feel like getting to locations were being skipped but it flowed well considering it always came after dealing with a realm outside of the land.
Everything the MC goes through just gets worse and worse and frankly I am here for it!

I love Aaslo he is a great BESTFRIEND/ brother and his overall personality is everything I love. His interactions with everyone are either hilarious or absolutely sweet, like his relationship with Peck and Mory is adorable, it’s like he adopted two sons haha.

Teza is a great female and I love her so much, I’m interested to see where things go with her.
But by far the best character in this story is..
Dolt the horse. This Horse is either really dumb or seriously blessed but I loved every scene with him.

The end definitely made me go “sequel now” so I am so looking forward to what is coming next! ( )

I feel bad DNF'ing this because I really, really was looking forward to reading this and was hoping to like it. Unfortunately, it failed to pull me in and I've had to force myself through the last 20-odd pages I read and I cannot make myself read any further. The writing just feels too unpolished, the characters undeveloped (and immature for their supposed ages,) and the story itself feels rushed and confused. I think it could have benefited if it had slowed down and given me any reason to care about any of the characters or anything going on, but unfortunately, I don't care about any of it. The concept is interesting at a very, very high level but that doesn't really matter much when the execution is so lacking. ( )