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emmas_reads_'s review against another edition
3.0
3.5/5 stars
I thought this book started out strong but when kind of downhill. I didn’t realize until after I finished the book that I was able to guess a lot of the plot before it happened. That eventually turned into a somewhat mediocre fantasy book and the pacing felt off after the first 150 pages.
The characters were also average. Sirscha was a pretty standard YA fantasy protagonist, though I did like that one of her major flaws was not believing in herself, that she would be no one. We saw some development in her character but not much and her friendship with Saengo didn’t feel like it was all there. Theyen and Prince Meilek’s ‘friendship’ didn’t feel much like friendship. Theyen’s relationship with Sirscha felt forced and rushed and Prince Meilek’s relationship with her felt like it was born of convenience/opportunity.
One of this book’s aspects I did like was that there was no romance - that I could personally detect - though I’m wondering if, should the series contain a romance, it’ll be a love triangle.
I thought this book started out strong but when kind of downhill. I didn’t realize until after I finished the book that I was able to guess a lot of the plot before it happened. That eventually turned into a somewhat mediocre fantasy book and the pacing felt off after the first 150 pages.
The characters were also average. Sirscha was a pretty standard YA fantasy protagonist, though I did like that one of her major flaws was not believing in herself, that she would be no one. We saw some development in her character but not much and her friendship with Saengo didn’t feel like it was all there. Theyen and Prince Meilek’s ‘friendship’ didn’t feel much like friendship. Theyen’s relationship with Sirscha felt forced and rushed and Prince Meilek’s relationship with her felt like it was born of convenience/opportunity.
One of this book’s aspects I did like was that there was no romance - that I could personally detect - though I’m wondering if, should the series contain a romance, it’ll be a love triangle.
resiilein's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
alexias_corner_'s review against another edition
4.0
If you have arachnophobia, then this isn’t the book for you!!
I thoroughly enjoyed this book! I can’t wait to read the next one! It’s more YA fantasy and no romance so I know a lot of people will skip over it, but I think it’s worth the read! It’s got a LOT of world building, which sometimes it left me confused, but the more you read it the more it can be easy to understand. The twist at the end that leads into the next book is pretty predictable, but I still really loved it! It’s probably a book/series I won’t read again, but I’m still glad that I’ll at least read them through once!
I thoroughly enjoyed this book! I can’t wait to read the next one! It’s more YA fantasy and no romance so I know a lot of people will skip over it, but I think it’s worth the read! It’s got a LOT of world building, which sometimes it left me confused, but the more you read it the more it can be easy to understand. The twist at the end that leads into the next book is pretty predictable, but I still really loved it! It’s probably a book/series I won’t read again, but I’m still glad that I’ll at least read them through once!
alysreadsss's review against another edition
I’m just not enjoying this. I’m four chapters in and I just don’t remember anything that’s happened. It sucks because I wanted to like this, but oh well.
gameoftomes's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Highly subjective high rating. RTC
insipidurbanism's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
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
4.5
josiesweeney's review against another edition
I think I started this when I was depressed. I couldn’t stay focused on the characters or story and just couldn’t get back to listening to this. This is a personal issue and I’m sure nothing to do with the book.
willrefuge's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 / 5 ✪
https://arefugefromlife.wordpress.com/2021/12/05/forest-of-souls-by-lori-m-lee-review/
Sirscha Ashwyn comes from nothing—abandoned as a child and brought up in the Evewynian Kingdom, she has no family, no people, and no idea where she belongs. But she’s been working all her life to change that.
Now, as one of the favored apprentices of the Shadow, the Queen’s spymaster, she aims to cement her place in the kingdom, and carve out a page of her own in its history books. But such rarely goes to plan.
When out on a military assignment, Sirscha and her best friend Saengo sneak off to a tea house in order to conduct Shadow business, only to be ambushed by a pair of shamans intent on killing Sirscha. They kill Saengo instead.
And then somehow, Sirscha restores her friend to life.
Soon revealed as Shamanborn herself, Sirscha must flee from the same kingdom she grew up in and has trained to serve her whole life. Instead she and Saengo must travel to the domain of the Spider King, traversing the Dead Wood in a desperate attempt to prove her worth to the Queen, and the kingdom itself.
But her path is not so simple as that. Shadows lurk around every corner, plots that would see her—or worse, Saengo—dead. Sirscha doesn’t know who to trust, nor friend from enemy. She knows that she needs allies, however, but not whom to turn to. She must traverse this dangerous new environment with just her best friend to help, while the kingdoms grow ever closer to war around her.
There’s nothing too confusing about the plot of Forest of Souls. A coming-of-age fantasy set in an interesting if not overly unique fantasy world, it all boils down to a quest, something that Sirscha needs to accomplish in order to return to the kingdom. See, not long into the book, our hero is revealed as a Shamanborn; her power awakening when she restores Saengo to life. Shamans are reviled in Evewyn, ever since their part in the death of the Queen’s parents…? I think? (I read this as an audiobook, and I’m a bit foggy on the details here. I tried to look it up in reviews/previews/sneak-peeks but of course that didn’t work) Sufficient to say that a few shamans did something awful, and the Queen seems content to take that out on the rest of them. And so Sirscha has to find a way to make herself indispensable to the Queen if she ever wants to return home. Which she does… at first.
The complicated thing about Sirscha is that she’s a bit of a hypocrite. Brought up believing (to some extent) that shamans were the cause of all of Evewyn’s problems, once she is revealed as one, it doesn’t take her long to complete a full-180 and buy completely into shaman nationalism as it were. She goes from blaming the shamans to blaming the kingdom for the exact same things so quickly that’s strange to see. There is a little conflict of identity, but it’s all sorted out before lunch. But this leads me to one of my biggest issues with this book: the character development.
The characters are a mixed bag. Sirscha is deep and intricate, with her own motivation and backstory and ideals that are somewhere between relevant to completely different than anyone else’s. As such, Prince Meilek and Theyen stand out because their motivations are shrouded in mystery, much like their actions and desires. The Queen and Spider King as well are deep in their own right, even though we don’t see too much of them. Everyone else is just… forgettable. This includes Saengo. Despite being billed as Sirscha’s best friend and confidant, the only link to her past and vital to her future in more ways than one—she doesn’t really get that much screen time. Sirscha is always brushing her off to go somewhere or do something on her own. And while Saengo is on screen about half the time, we really don’t know too much about her. The text glosses over her family and her feelings with their predicament, but she really gets less in-depth analysis than someone like the Spider King, despite being billed as an integral part of Sirscha’s world.
As I said, the characters are a bit of a mixed bag. Which leads me to their relationships and development. There’s really no romance in Forest of Souls, which is refreshing. It seems every single YA fantasy I read has to set up some unrealistic romance that has no way of working out, except of course it does. The few exceptions to this feature something more like a classical romance, a love-triangle, quadrangle, or full-on orgy. There are a few hints of possible future romance in this, but that’s it. For the most part we focus on Sirscha and Saengo’s relationship—which is deep and meaningful in a way that Saengo’s character isn’t. It’s really quite odd. And while the relationships change and develop over the course of the story, the characters really don’t. Almost zero character growth or development. Sirscha goes from blaming one faction to blaming another faction almost overnight, but there’s no real thought-process behind it. It seems more like a snap decision is made: here’s what we’re doing. No one else shows anymore development than her—something I’d like to see change in the second book.
TL;DR
All in all Forest of Souls is an enjoyable fantasy adventure with an interesting concept and a slow-building but ultimately satisfying story, that touts friendship and love over romance and sex but ends without any real meaningful connection from it. It’s… a complicated one to describe. I really enjoyed so many things about it—from the story to the mystery to the world itself, most of the characters with their own depth and motivations and peculiarities, the mixed bag of emotions and questions that was Sirscha herself. But it also had its downsides; from the lack of any real character-development to the disappointment of Saengo as any sort of character at all, to Sirscha’s actions that often seemed to have no forethought while others seemed the complete opposite but for the same reasons.
I mean, well, I did quite like it, but Forest of Souls was not withouts its issues. It’s quite an odd read, really, a mixed bag of mostly good ideas and execution, albeit with a few glaring and frankly strange choices that hold it back from greatness. Let’s hope these are addressed in the sequel—Broken Web, out since the summer of 2021—a book that I do plan on reading. The reactions to this one are all over the map, with no one anywhere near a consensus on where to rate it. So… I’d still recommend Forest of Souls, but maybe try to pick it up on sale, or from the library?
https://arefugefromlife.wordpress.com/2021/12/05/forest-of-souls-by-lori-m-lee-review/
Sirscha Ashwyn comes from nothing—abandoned as a child and brought up in the Evewynian Kingdom, she has no family, no people, and no idea where she belongs. But she’s been working all her life to change that.
Now, as one of the favored apprentices of the Shadow, the Queen’s spymaster, she aims to cement her place in the kingdom, and carve out a page of her own in its history books. But such rarely goes to plan.
When out on a military assignment, Sirscha and her best friend Saengo sneak off to a tea house in order to conduct Shadow business, only to be ambushed by a pair of shamans intent on killing Sirscha. They kill Saengo instead.
And then somehow, Sirscha restores her friend to life.
Soon revealed as Shamanborn herself, Sirscha must flee from the same kingdom she grew up in and has trained to serve her whole life. Instead she and Saengo must travel to the domain of the Spider King, traversing the Dead Wood in a desperate attempt to prove her worth to the Queen, and the kingdom itself.
But her path is not so simple as that. Shadows lurk around every corner, plots that would see her—or worse, Saengo—dead. Sirscha doesn’t know who to trust, nor friend from enemy. She knows that she needs allies, however, but not whom to turn to. She must traverse this dangerous new environment with just her best friend to help, while the kingdoms grow ever closer to war around her.
There’s nothing too confusing about the plot of Forest of Souls. A coming-of-age fantasy set in an interesting if not overly unique fantasy world, it all boils down to a quest, something that Sirscha needs to accomplish in order to return to the kingdom. See, not long into the book, our hero is revealed as a Shamanborn; her power awakening when she restores Saengo to life. Shamans are reviled in Evewyn, ever since their part in the death of the Queen’s parents…? I think? (I read this as an audiobook, and I’m a bit foggy on the details here. I tried to look it up in reviews/previews/sneak-peeks but of course that didn’t work) Sufficient to say that a few shamans did something awful, and the Queen seems content to take that out on the rest of them. And so Sirscha has to find a way to make herself indispensable to the Queen if she ever wants to return home. Which she does… at first.
The complicated thing about Sirscha is that she’s a bit of a hypocrite. Brought up believing (to some extent) that shamans were the cause of all of Evewyn’s problems, once she is revealed as one, it doesn’t take her long to complete a full-180 and buy completely into shaman nationalism as it were. She goes from blaming the shamans to blaming the kingdom for the exact same things so quickly that’s strange to see. There is a little conflict of identity, but it’s all sorted out before lunch. But this leads me to one of my biggest issues with this book: the character development.
The characters are a mixed bag. Sirscha is deep and intricate, with her own motivation and backstory and ideals that are somewhere between relevant to completely different than anyone else’s. As such, Prince Meilek and Theyen stand out because their motivations are shrouded in mystery, much like their actions and desires. The Queen and Spider King as well are deep in their own right, even though we don’t see too much of them. Everyone else is just… forgettable. This includes Saengo. Despite being billed as Sirscha’s best friend and confidant, the only link to her past and vital to her future in more ways than one—she doesn’t really get that much screen time. Sirscha is always brushing her off to go somewhere or do something on her own. And while Saengo is on screen about half the time, we really don’t know too much about her. The text glosses over her family and her feelings with their predicament, but she really gets less in-depth analysis than someone like the Spider King, despite being billed as an integral part of Sirscha’s world.
As I said, the characters are a bit of a mixed bag. Which leads me to their relationships and development. There’s really no romance in Forest of Souls, which is refreshing. It seems every single YA fantasy I read has to set up some unrealistic romance that has no way of working out, except of course it does. The few exceptions to this feature something more like a classical romance, a love-triangle, quadrangle, or full-on orgy. There are a few hints of possible future romance in this, but that’s it. For the most part we focus on Sirscha and Saengo’s relationship—which is deep and meaningful in a way that Saengo’s character isn’t. It’s really quite odd. And while the relationships change and develop over the course of the story, the characters really don’t. Almost zero character growth or development. Sirscha goes from blaming one faction to blaming another faction almost overnight, but there’s no real thought-process behind it. It seems more like a snap decision is made: here’s what we’re doing. No one else shows anymore development than her—something I’d like to see change in the second book.
TL;DR
All in all Forest of Souls is an enjoyable fantasy adventure with an interesting concept and a slow-building but ultimately satisfying story, that touts friendship and love over romance and sex but ends without any real meaningful connection from it. It’s… a complicated one to describe. I really enjoyed so many things about it—from the story to the mystery to the world itself, most of the characters with their own depth and motivations and peculiarities, the mixed bag of emotions and questions that was Sirscha herself. But it also had its downsides; from the lack of any real character-development to the disappointment of Saengo as any sort of character at all, to Sirscha’s actions that often seemed to have no forethought while others seemed the complete opposite but for the same reasons.
I mean, well, I did quite like it, but Forest of Souls was not withouts its issues. It’s quite an odd read, really, a mixed bag of mostly good ideas and execution, albeit with a few glaring and frankly strange choices that hold it back from greatness. Let’s hope these are addressed in the sequel—Broken Web, out since the summer of 2021—a book that I do plan on reading. The reactions to this one are all over the map, with no one anywhere near a consensus on where to rate it. So… I’d still recommend Forest of Souls, but maybe try to pick it up on sale, or from the library?
evitaveda's review against another edition
3.5
“Danger makes you deadly. She’d misunderstood. It had never been danger. It was fear.”
This was a good start to a YA fantasy trilogy. Sirscha was an interesting MC and I liked how she interacted with the other characters in the book. There were quite a few side characters and I felt like some of them deserved a bit more page time, but hopefully that’ll be coming up in the next books.
Although there was lots of action and exciting things happening throughout, it took me a while to become invested. Luckily, I really enjoyed the last third of the book and thought the ending set up great things for the next book. Excited to see where the story goes.
Try if you like:
🌳Haunted forests
🌳Mysterious magic
🌳Dragon-like animals
🌳Politics and complicated history
🌳Fast paced storytelling with lots of action
🌳Friendship goals!!
A great quote:
“How many years, decades, lifetimes even, would it take for someone to become unmoved by tragedy?”
This was a good start to a YA fantasy trilogy. Sirscha was an interesting MC and I liked how she interacted with the other characters in the book. There were quite a few side characters and I felt like some of them deserved a bit more page time, but hopefully that’ll be coming up in the next books.
Although there was lots of action and exciting things happening throughout, it took me a while to become invested. Luckily, I really enjoyed the last third of the book and thought the ending set up great things for the next book. Excited to see where the story goes.
Try if you like:
🌳Haunted forests
🌳Mysterious magic
🌳Dragon-like animals
🌳Politics and complicated history
🌳Fast paced storytelling with lots of action
🌳Friendship goals!!
A great quote:
“How many years, decades, lifetimes even, would it take for someone to become unmoved by tragedy?”
uponthedowns's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0