1/5 stars
Synopsis
Warning! This section contains spoilers. If you would like to avoid these spoilers, jump to the review below.
The book started with the characters shooting arrows at incoming monsters. They were part of an archery club and had just come from a practice meeting when the world went crazy. After they finished with the monsters they were shooting at, they went towards the sound of gunfire and found more people. When they get to the people, they found a dungeon that was spawning the monsters, and decided to go in and clear the dungeon. The book then jumped to them being inside the dungeon, just continually shooting arrows at the attacking monsters. Once they got through the dungeon, and killed the dungeon boss, they were teleported out and the dungeon disappeared. They upgraded their abilities, and they determined they were going to go around closing dungeons in order to save more people.
Review
I felt like the author was trying to make the characters’ circumstances intense and stressful, but it only felt tedious. It didn’t feel stressful because the main character didn’t really feel anything. Stressful fight? The main character is calm and not stressed because he can disassociate from his emotions. I feel like the story would have been better if he was worried about a family member, like a sister or parent or something. It would have been better if he wasn’t just fighting against the monsters, but he was also fighting against something that he can’t really fight against, such as time. For example, the book would have been better if he needed to hurry to get to his family member to protect them. If he wasn’t worried for himself, but he was worried for the family member, and knew that time was running out for them.
There was no depth to the story. Most of the writing felt like summarizing, and there weren’t any descriptions. I didn’t feel like the book had any stakes. Yeah, the characters were in a fight. So what? Why should I care? They were able to fight the monsters off, and they had increased health regeneration, so what were the stakes? What were they fighting for? Why were they fighting (besides the obvious reason of staying alive)? Were they fighting to be able to get to their family and protect them?
After they got out of the dungeon, two of their friends came over and they started talking. The new people mentioned that they had had enough tragedies for one day, and the main character knew that something terrible had happened but didn’t want to pry. Then they realized that the mana they got from their upgrades was breaking the world for some reason. One of the two new people suddenly broke down crying, saying she didn’t want to break the world, she was vegan and cycled to work and didn’t even travel anymore, all in the name of saving the planet. So to learn that she was suddenly breaking the planet because of her upgrades…it was a big shock to her. Never mind the personal tragedy the book hinted at happening to her. (I suspect her family died, but it did not say specifically.) All she cared about was saving the planet. I felt like this was super shallow. The character building in the book was not good. It definitely needed some work to make the characters more real.
The cover for this book looked amazing, but the book was lacking.
Fireheart Books 