Hello friends! Happy Wednesday, I hope you are all well! Today I’m posting my review of the first book in this duology, Given to the Sea by Mindy McGinnis.

Given to the Sea by: Mindy McGinnis: Khosa was born to be fed to the sea to prevent destruction of the Kingdom of Stille. But before she can be fed, she must produce an heir. Meanwhile, Vincent stands to inherit the throne of Stille. When his father hears about Khosa, Vincent knows his father will stop at nothing to get him to fulfill her duty. Now Vincent is torn between protecting his kingdom from destruction or protecting Khosa from her fate. This novel was fast-paced, but the fact that it moved fast didn’t mean it was easy to follow. The world building was lacklustre at best and the reader didn’t really understand what was happening and why. It took a while to get into the story and to figure out who was who. The characters were related but in ways that were ambiguous; the author never really told the reader and just expected them to know based on the little information that was provided to us. It was also implied that the reader should already know how the world worked because they found that nothing was explained properly; things kept happening to the characters and we were left to just except it. When the reader finally, sorta understood what the plot was, they didn’t feel very invested due to lack of information provided. There was supposed to be a romance sub-plot but even that lacked because everyone seemed to be attracted to another, even if they were related somehow and it rubbed the reader the wrong way. As for the characters, they weren’t memorable at all. We’re given four points of view but every time the reader would forget who’s view we were in because each of these characters were so bland and sounded like the other. There really were no distinctions. There’s supposedly a sequel to this and the reader has no idea what could come after this because from what the reader could tell, everything had wrapped up, the battle fought, what’s left to be done? After this, the reader isn’t sure they want to find out. Overall, this novel didn’t really do much; the story lacked in many ways, and was confusing in others. The reader believes that there may have been too many things happening for a coherent story.