Book Review: Nihal of the Land of the Wind

Update: I went back and made corrections to my review.


Book: Nihal of the Land of the Wind (Chronicles of the Overworld book #1) by Licia Troisi

Source: Borrowed from Publishers/NetGalley for an honest review

Publication: Available now

Description:

An international bestseller from an extraordinary storyteller—get ready for Nihal and her world

Nihal lives in one of the many towers of the Land of the Wind. There is nobody like her in the Overworld: big violet eyes, pointed ears, and blue hair. She is an expert in swordplay and the leader of a handful of friends that includes Sennar the wizard. She has no parents; brought up by an armorer and a sorceress, Nihal seems to be from nowhere.

Things suddenly change when the Tyrant takes charge. Nihal finds herself forced to take action when she is faced with the most difficult mission a girl her age could imagine.

Fierce, strong, and armed with her black crystal sword, Nihal sets out to become a real warrior. Readers will be riveted as she forges her powerful path of resistance.



Rating: 2 1/2 stars

Review:

Even though this wasn't an epic adventure like the Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit books as I was hoping it would be, it was still enjoyable. I like the world that the author had created but the story was a bit slow moving.

The story is about Nihal who has always felt different and not just from her looks (she's the only one in town with purple eyes, blue hair and pointy ears). She's always wanted to be a warrior but since she's a girl it's really unheard of. She normally plays with a group of boys playing war games and dueling. She is undefeated amongst all the boys, but one day when challenged to duel by Sennar, a strange boy who wanted to win her dagger. Despite all her skills, she lost the fight. Mainly due to her arrogance and that Sennar turned out to a sorcerer.

Sometime after that duel, Nihal wanted to take up learning magic, at first her father Livon did not want her learn because the evil Tyrant opposes magic users. But he finally relents and she is to be taught by her aunt Soana who lives on the outskirts of town.

When Nihal visits her aunt she is met by a surprise, turns out Sennar is also a magic student as well.

The story progresses over a few years with Nihal getting acquainted with magic but mostly now in regards to her pursuit of becoming a warrior. Sennar and Nihal become good friends despite a little animosity in the begining from Nihal from losing to him from the duel.

Sometime after Sennar became a fully recognized sorcerer the Tyrant attacked the town which had Nihal, Sennar and Soana having to leave the ransacked town to find somewhere safe to go. Nihal also found out why she always felt so different.

The story progressed with them traveling to meet up with the Dragon Knights. Some time later the story moved on to Nihal training to become a Knight and Sennar becoming a member of the Sorcerers Council.

There was a battle and even more training.

I think what annoyed me about this story was the pacing, it felt like it took a while for things to start happening. The story was just moving too slow. And I was also tired of Nihal's infatuation with the Knight Fen despite the fact that he's dating her aunt. All she seems to think about was him. I also wish Nihal wasn't so whiny and weak through out so much of the story. Why was she always crying? She was always saying she was tired of people treating her like a little girl (at that point in the story she was 16 years old), well if she stopped acting like a child maybe they would stop treating her as one. And once Nihal went through her training at the Academy her personality seemed to have disappeared.

Throughout the story she's either whiny, angry or crying. Where was the wonderful character that started out in this story. She was fun and interesting. That's the Nihal that should have been featured throughout the whole story.

Even though this story is about Nihal, I found Sennar more interesting. He wasn't a whiny little annoyance like Nihal. He had a good personality and was smart and funny. Hopefully he'll have a bigger role in the second book.

The story was good, I just wish it was a bit more exciting and Nihal was a more likeable and interesting character. If I could I would give 4 stars for Sennar, he was my favorite character in this story. I also wish the story had not focused so much time on Nihal's training there was just way too many scenes that focused on it, well at least for me.

Maybe the second book will be a lot better and hopefully Nihal will be as well.