The Waking Land - Callie Bates

Sigh.  What a disappointment this one was.  Recommended for people who liked Uprooted, which I loved, I found that it ultimately fell flat and felt more like the conclusion to a series, or at least a middle book, than it did a first book.

The story follows Elanna Valtai, who is taken hostage by the king of her country in exchange for her parents' good behavior after the foiling of a rebellion they were attempting to foment.  Raised by the king like his second daughter, Elanna has become fiercely loyal to king and country and scores her home province, her family that never came for her, etc.  Until the king dies under mysterious circumstances, Elanna is framed for the murder, and she throws everything she's ever loved out the window not to clear her name, but instead to support the very rebellion she scorned for so long and to embrace the magic she's always hated.

There is absolutely no consistency in Elanna's character.  Yes, she is nineteen and some allowances can be made; but she flipflops between causes and decisions and abandons things she's loved and believed in her entire life so easily.  She has no constancy in her character and it made me really dislike her as a heroine.  I loved the idea of her magic, of her waking the land to go win it back for her people, but the way it was done just felt rushed.  There are so many different possibilities Bates jumps between here, but she abandons them without developing them and left me wondering why they were introduced in the first place.  This also affected the pacing, making it seem like a sprint for the finish instead of a slow building and developing of characters and world.  There is so much potential here, but the jumpiness of the story meant that much of it was left undeveloped and underutilized.  And the side characters!  While Elanna's countrymen are wonderful, for some reason Elanna is one of those characters that everyone falls in love with, even though she's absolutely horrible.

This was such a frustrating book to read because I just kept wanting it to be more.  More developed, more thought out, with more consistent characters--all of it.  There was so much cool stuff in here, but it was never really brought out and used in the ways that would have best highlighted it, and it felt like Bates was trying to stuff three books' worth of plot into one, which didn't work out.

2 stars out of 5.