The Silverskin Legacy

[Jez]

The Silverskin Legacy: Book 1 by Jo Whittemore

I picked this book up from the library on a whim. I glanced at the cover and title and barely skimmed the back-of-the-book description before putting it on my stack of books to take out. Because of that, it wasn't until I was well into the eighth chapter that I realized the book was only part one of three. I checked the county computer catalog and none of the libraries had a copy of book two. Same for the neighboring county's libraries. I figured I'd wait until finishing book one and then if it was good, I'd buy book two. The first book was not good enough to buy book two, even at the relatively cheap price of $8.95.

Whittemore starts out with a decent enough, if nowhere near original, plot. Two high schoolers, Megan and Ainsley overhear their neighbor talking to a mysterious stranger, who apparently wields magic. The magic he displays is the opening of a portal, which he and the neighbor go through. Unsurprisingly, Ainsley and Megan are accidentally transported through the portal. They soon discover that their kindly neighbor is actually the king of this magical world they now find themselves trapped in. They conveniently get themselves mixed up in the problems the king is facing, that is, of course, world-ending war at the hands of a rogue magic-user. At this point I'd been rolling my eyes for quite some time, but I was still under the impression that the story would end with this book, and so I decided to stick it out. I wasn't rewarded.

The story was predictable and generally boring. There were a few likable scenes and some of the characters were ok some of the time, but overall the story rang hollow. The characters didn't have much depth, and their personalities were inconsistently written. The word 'shit' appeared twice, which was odd and felt like the author was trying to make her book "adult" (the only instance of, btw), rather than use the curses to illustrate the cursing character's personality. Another irritating feature of the book was that it was told through multiple characters' eyes. This can be an ok writing tactic when the viewpoint switches from chapter to chapter, but when it switches from paragraph to paragraph--and sometimes even mid-paragraph--as it did in this book, it does not work.

Overall, I was unimpressed. The book wasn't notably bad, but it was not worth buying to continue the series. I might have given book two a chance, if I didn't have to pay for it.

[Winifred]

Thanks, Jez!

[Jez]

You're welcome