The Oddling Prince by Nancy Springer

TITLE: The Oddling Prince 

BY: Nancy Springer

GENRE: Fantasy, Young Adult

EXPECTED PUBLICATION: May 15th 2018 by Tachyon Publications

RATING:

♦♦♦GOODREADS DESCRIPTION♦♦♦

         In the ancient moors of Scotland, the king of Calidon lies on his deathbed, cursed by a ring that cannot be removed from his finger. When a mysterious fey stranger appears to save the king, he also carries a secret that could tear the royal family apart.
        The kingdom’s only hope will lie with two young men raised worlds apart. Aric is the beloved heir to the throne of Calidon; Albaric is clearly of noble origin yet strangely out of place.
The Oddling Prince is a tale of brothers whose love and loyalty to each other is such that it defies impending warfare, sundering seas, fated hatred, and the very course of time itself. In her long-awaited new fantasy novel, Nancy Springer (the Books of Isle series) explores the darkness of the human heart as well as its unceasing capacity for love. 

Warning: Minor Spoilers ahead (depends on how you take them)

I think this book isn’t for me…

The Oddling Prince is no doubt brilliantly written. I love the author’s style, and yes, the 2.5 stars are for it alone. It was worded using archaic language, almost like in King James version of the Bible, and thankfully, it’s my favorite version so I find the writing of this book fascinating. The words are flowery, lyrical and poetic.

Now with the content, I have so many complains. It was boring. I was expecting this book to be high fantasy, with faes and elves, but what I got is a tale, though the words used were beautiful, it wasn’t told properly. Maybe it has something to do with the narrator, Aric,  that as a character, I dislike. I’ll get to the characters later… Anyway, it started with the kingdom’s misery with the King, King Bardaric, lain in bed dying because of some stupid ring. Then the arrival of Albaric. From then, Aric chose to narrate their everyday activities, worse, their everyday activities aren’t that interesting. Such as how Albaric chose and tame a horse and how he sings to it. And Aric even narrated Albaric’s bath because the aforementioned horse made him sore and bruised, aching all over. (And mind you, there are plenty of baths in the story.)

I do understand such scenes are necessary so the reader understand how new Albaric is in his new form but it gets boring. It takes at least 40% of the book, the introduction I mean before they get into an adventure. And the said adventure isn’t the kind of adventure I was expecting. It was lame.

The world, though seems fantastic isn’t that amazing. It’s also underwhelming. Just another kingdom and it’s neighboring realms.

The characters… Aric and Albaric are the corniest characters I’ve ever encountered. And that twist in the ending didn’t even made it better for me. Why? Because the twist just explained why they were so close though they were raised worlds apart. It didn’t change the fact that their actions and words are too soft. Too feminine. It would’ve been so much better if this book turned out to be LGBTQ. It might have redeemed the characters for me. Ah!!! I would’ve loved them more if they were… And I almost think the story will turn into something taboo the way they interact with each other but it didn’t. Though I wouldn’t have mind if it came to that (I’m a GoT Fan). At least that would’ve explained so many things…

Obviously, I didn’t like the ending though the twist might surprise others, I find it eeeewwww!!! Like I hate to imagine them now.

This book might not be a bad book for others, even I, won’t call this like that. This isn’t just a book for me and this is just a different-than-usual book…

Thank you to the publishers for granting me an e-copy thru Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. 🙂 

Happy Reading guys and hope you like this more than I did. I mean look at how gorgeous the cover…