{"id":2430,"date":"2018-03-21T20:19:06","date_gmt":"2018-03-21T20:19:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nhlibraries.org\/fun\/2018\/03\/soulbound-2\/"},"modified":"2018-04-05T13:58:59","modified_gmt":"2018-04-05T13:58:59","slug":"soulbound-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nhlibraries.org\/fun\/2018\/03\/soulbound-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Soulbound"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>      FlumeAward &#8211; Soulbound                <em><a class=\"wiki_link_ext\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nhu-pac.library.state.nh.us\/ipac20\/ipac.jsp?&amp;profile=nhais&amp;uri=link=3100024~!3722054~!3100001~!3100002&amp;aspect=reserves&amp;menu=search&amp;ri=2&amp;source=~!nh_nhupac&amp;term=Legacy+of+Tril+%3B&amp;index=ALLTITL\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Legacy of Tril: Soulbound<\/a><\/em> by Heather Brewer<\/p>\n<p>I just finished Soulbound, and while the plot definitely had me coming back, I found more cons than pros.<\/p>\n<p>I liked:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The setting- sort of Japan, with Japanese-inspired place names &amp; family names, they use katanas, wear gis (even if they&#8217;re not called that), etc.<\/li>\n<li>Maddox, Kaya&#8217;s assigned guard and new BFF (after her childhood one was eaten by monsters)- she&#8217;s tough &amp; sarcastic, though I&#8217;d like to see more effort spent on her in the next book<\/li>\n<li>The &quot;Beauty &amp; the Beast&quot;-esque library scene<\/li>\n<li>Kaya&#8217;s determination to learn how to protect herself &amp; speak up for herself &amp; what&#8217;s right, and her eventual ability to kick serious butt.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I was disappointed by:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>inconsistencies in world-building (&quot;He reached for the light switch,&quot; but describing candles &amp; torches for light sources; extremely rigid rules &amp; oppressive school officials, but there&#8217;s alcohol-fueled dorm parties, etc),<\/li>\n<li>lack of details in the horrible beasts (big, blue, scaly &amp; possess several rows of teeth, a horrible smell, and black eyes- tail? who knows? claws? dunno. number of limbs? no clue. All I kept picturing was the monster from &quot;<a class=\"wiki_link_ext\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Ef2wnLL1s00\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Scary Smash<\/a>&quot; with Joss Whedon (which you should go watch right now))<\/li>\n<li>a whole lot of whaa mixed in with the main character&#8217;s kick-ass-edness.<\/li>\n<li>The straight-arrow love interest is WAY too straight-arrow, the bad boy love interest is interesting, but still not fully-fleshed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The title &quot;Soulbound&quot; refers to a phenomenon where each &quot;skilled&quot; person is born with a crescent mark somewhere on their body. It is silver when you&#8217;re born, red after you&#8217;ve met your soulbound partner (he\/she was born at the same moment as you), and turns black if your partner dies. There&#8217;s a big ol&#8217; twist at the end involving the fate of Kaya&#8217;s (our heroine) soulbound partner. It&#8217;s a big dunh-dunh-DUUUNNNNHHH moment, but all I kept thinking is, almost from the first explanation of the marks, WHAT DOES HER MARK LOOK LIKE??? If you&#8217;re feeling mopey about the death of you soulbound mate, wouldn&#8217;t you think about the only connection you had with him? And since the book is told from Kaya&#8217;s POV, we should be privy to any thoughts she&#8217;s having. But then, that would have given away the twist much earlier.<br \/>So, I obviously am not recommending &quot;Soulbound&quot; for the Flume nominee list. I will probably read the next volume, cuz I have to finish a series once I&#8217;m in it, but this book is not Flume-worthy. There are plenty of great fantasy books out there (I have high hopes for &quot;Bitterblue,&quot; next on my list), and this is not one of them.<\/p>\n<p>-Lucia Von Letkemann, Wiggin Memorial Library, Stratham, 3\/2\/13<\/p>\n<p>Lucia said everything I wanted to say about this book. I would not recommend it to the list either. <br \/>Sally Nelson, Leach Library, Londonderry      <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FlumeAward &#8211; Soulbound Legacy of Tril: Soulbound by Heather Brewer I just finished Soulbound, and while the plot definitely had me coming back, I found more cons than pros. I &#8230; <\/p>\n<p class=\"moree\"><a class=\"btn btn-inverse btn-normal btn-primary \" href=\"https:\/\/nhlibraries.org\/fun\/2018\/03\/soulbound-2\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-flume-award-titles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nhlibraries.org\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nhlibraries.org\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nhlibraries.org\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nhlibraries.org\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nhlibraries.org\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2430"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nhlibraries.org\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3408,"href":"https:\/\/nhlibraries.org\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2430\/revisions\/3408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nhlibraries.org\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nhlibraries.org\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nhlibraries.org\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}