Reviews

Realm Breaker by Victoria Aveyard

zagabergman's review

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

anita04's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

libraryofdreaming's review against another edition

4.0

ETA: In 2022 during my reread my rating has jumped to 5 stars. This book still stands up and I loved it!!!

This was a super challenging read. At times, I was alternately bored, entertained, and confused. Ultimately, I really enjoyed it but the experience is not for the faint of art. Frankly, there are too many characters and the pacing is all over the place. It could've been much better, but for hardcore fantasy fans I think the struggle is ~almost entirely worth it.

k_gavagan's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense

4.0

tasha_alora's review against another edition

adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

damianwinter's review against another edition

4.0

It was a little slow at first, hence me taking 4 months to read it. I did really like it though.

mcft37's review against another edition

adventurous slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

So much promise, but ultimately this book just felt awkward. Like it couldn't quite get it's footing. Even some if the action packed, tense scenes just kind of dragged on. 

The story is told in multiple POV. Seriously, there are six. The result, for me, was rather disjointed. The characters and their actions felt rather shallow and underdeveloped. 

Not sure I will continue the series...

jojowashere's review against another edition

adventurous tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

maeceybee's review against another edition

adventurous slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I thought that going into Realm Breaker it would be a wild ride of adventures, battles, and intense stakes just from the beginning prologue. Like man, that prologue was probably the best part of the book. But, after that, it fell flat. And for the record, I do not hate this author. However, this was not it for me. Major spoilers ahead, so stop reading now if you want to save yourself!

Plot: 

Realm Breaker follows mainly Andry, Dom, Corayne, and Sorosa on a journey to save the world from Spindles. Or so I thought. First of all, they didn’t do any saving, they just ran around adding some people to their crew who were A) useless, or B) betrayed them (like they couldn’t see a bounty hunter betraying them. Also, a big plot point in this book was to gain an army of allies, like the Queen of Galland, but when we find out that she was helping Taristan, we learn that she is not going to be helpful. I liked this plot twist, but I would have liked it more if we had more chapters in her pov. I actually enjoyed these chapters from her, because Taristan and Erida actually did something to achieve their goals. From all the other perspectives, it felt like they only talked about how the end of the world was coming and they needed to stop it, but they never took steps to stop the end of the world. Why don’t they go to the spindles? Why don’t they find out where Taristan is and stop him? Why don’t they run, or warn people, or help their family? And as for world building, it was there…but it also wasn’t? Like, it was never really explained what spindles were, what a spindle blade was, what old cor is, the history of the immortals. And yeah, I don’t want this stuff bluntly explained to me, but it was kinda just thrown at me and I had to pretend I understood exactly what was being talked about. When I didn’t, and to be honest, I still don’t totally understand. But the explanation that I am understanding is, it's a magic and fictional world, so every confusing thing is due to magic. Duh.

Characters:

Corayne, the daughter of a pirate. I liked Corayne in the beginning, but by the end she just melted in the background. Similar to Andry, Dom, and Sorosa, the chapters from her POV didn’t feel personal, and several chapters could have been told from any of their perspectives and been the exact same. Something I wish was explored more is her self doubt. I mean, Corayne doesn’t even know how to close a spindle, and yet everyone is still riding on her to save the world. There has to be some sort of pressure put on her here, and the most we see is a glimpse of it in the chapter where Sigil and Sorosa are teaching her how to fight, and she is angry at herself for not fighting correctly despite never being trained? We could have seen more of her relationship with her mother and difficulties there, or how hard it was for her to grow up without a father around, or how closed off from the world she feels because of never leaving home. SO MANY CHARACTER POINTS. Instead, we just get a surface level character with the potential to be so much more. 

Dom, an immortal prince. I don’t have much to say about him, except that I wanted more backstory. How was your life Dom, being a prince? Do you have any family stories, who taught you to fight, and how was your relationship with Cortael (preferably in detail as we usually only got pieces of their past). And, unlike Andry, Dom doesn’t seem to have any trauma from the prologue where he saw thousands of people murdered. He only feels anger, and yet, doesn’t make his crew move any faster to oh, I don’t know, stop the end of the world? I also find it interesting that he is dumb as bricks, and although this character point was annoying at times, I would have loved scenes with him and Corayne and Andry teaching him mortal customs. Alas, those only exist in my head. 

Andry, the traumatized squire. I believe that Andry was a solid character in the beginning. He believed that he was the only person to survive a blood bath, and he escaped with the most valued thing in this book, a spindle blade. When he gets back to Galland, he hides his sword, meets with the Queen, and we learn then that his mother is very ill. Wait what? Backstory? Yes, vague but yes. We never learn too much about Valeri Trelland, but we know that Andry loves her dearly. Enough to send her away on a ship, without him, to save the world! Yet, he doesn’t save the world, he gets thrown out of Galland by the Queen, and he doesn’t know if his mother is even alive anymore. And after we find out that Erida has literally married the enemy, Andry fades into the background as useless. Sorry Andry, I promise you were my favorite character at the beginning, but you just became so forgettable. I would have loved to see Andry make a relationship with Corayne, either romantic or just good old friends. But nothing; he becomes so useless by the end of the book, you have to remember the only reason he is part of the crew is because he had the spindle blade and then decided to tag along like a puppy. 

Sorasa, the assassin. Sorasa was the second most badass in this book, and I liked reading about her a lot. She was cunning, smart, and only in it for the money (until she was in it not to die, and then not to let her newfound friends die). Her motive alone is a simple way to develop a character. And it works. Yes, this assassin could have had more development, but where she is with her reasons for staying with the group alone changed so much. She went from selfish to selfless in the span of this book, which was great to see. I wish we got more information on how she was “banned” from the Amhara, or about her family, but just the relationship that was explored between her and everyone else was good. Specifically, she taught Corayne to defend herself when no one else would, and even made a powerful statement about how women were always going to be treated differently. This was a cute little scene, one of the only good scenes we saw with Sorasa and the group.

Erida, the queen. Erida was my favorite character by far. She actually had some sense of depth to her character, and I loved seeing her chapters. She did what she needed to do to protect her crown, and she wasn’t even forced or tricked into it, she decided to marry Taristan by herself. She doesn’t care that he isn’t a prince, she cares that she can control him and help her kingdom. No ounce of remorse was in her character, showing that she believed in everything she was doing. If that’s not a badass female character, then I don’t know what is. 

Taristan, the evil uncle. Taristan was by far, the strongest character. The book is literally named after him when Erida calls him the breaker of realms. He reaches his goal, he is merciless, and he won’t let anything get in his way. He doesn’t run around the world looking for the four stooges, he lets Erida handle it and then goes on to create more spindles. Taristan, you had a goal and you achieved it. 

Valtik, the old and useless woman, ahem, I mean the witch. Valtik spoke in riddles that never made sense, however Corayne knew exactly what was spoken. Good for her? I didn’t understand any of those riddles, and she didn’t exactly move the plot along. I don’t know why she was here, like, at all. 

Ridha, the immortal princess. She went around asking kingdoms to fight the end of the world with her. Against an undead army. Yep, that’s all she did. Now, how did she get a POV and Taristan didn’t? Ridha, I wanted to love you, but you were completely irrelevant to the story. You could have been replaced or taken out completely and the plot would not have changed in the slightest. 

So, all in all, I didn’t like this book. I liked parts, but overall, it was too flat, confusing, and frustrating. Again, I didn’t write this review to hate on the author, but just to explain how I felt. This book could definitely work for some people, but unfortunately I’m not those people. Take my review with a grain of salt, as I haven’t read the sequel (and am not planning to). Many of the issues I had in plot and character could easily be fixed with the sequel, but I will likely never know. 

lcvsgood's review against another edition

adventurous challenging mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75