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outandaboutbooks's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
brandiraefong's review against another edition
Kings, queens, magic, political intrigue, strong female main character...and dragons? Yes, please.
There's no lack of recent books in this particular genre, the dragons created an interesting twist though. It was also light on the romance aspect, which was good. The world building and secondary characters could have been a little more developed, but the overall plot and the pacing were done well enough that I don't think readers will mind.
This is a great addition to the large array of Red Queen/Throne of Glass books that are out there.
There's no lack of recent books in this particular genre, the dragons created an interesting twist though. It was also light on the romance aspect, which was good. The world building and secondary characters could have been a little more developed, but the overall plot and the pacing were done well enough that I don't think readers will mind.
This is a great addition to the large array of Red Queen/Throne of Glass books that are out there.
polishandpaperbacks's review against another edition
2.0
Dnf. I didn't like the main character at all.
candece's review against another edition
2.0
On average it takes me 2-3 days to read a book. But I have been reading this book for a while now (longer than a week) and it is boring as hell. The only moderately interesting thing about this book is the guy Asha is betrothed to Jarek. Other than that the romance is crap, between her and the slave. Asha (the MC) is boring as all get out, and resisting him (the slave) and insulting him at every turn, yet for some inexplicable reason he still likes her and complements her even though she has told him if he says stuff like that again she will kill him. This forced romance is just dumb. This story has not held my interest for longer than 5 mins.
Moreover, the author keeps having the MC do things that she’s against and things she hates doing with no reason for her doing it. Example Asha’s a dragon hunter, the Old One gave her a majestic dragon and told her she was to protect it. She has threatened to kill it multiple times yet doesn’t. She’s following the Old Ones commands even though she has a “more important” task to do, her words. It makes no since…. If she is against the Old One why follow his commands. She was giving the command to only use her blades to correct a wrong. If she use the blades for any other reason than to correct a wrong it will hurt her, well killing Kozu (the First Dragon who burned the city and burned her face) doesn’t fall under that category and she isn’t correcting a wrong, why use the blades if she’s complaining about it????
No one is making her follow these commands and they go against everything she has been brought up to believe also they go against her father the king, the one she claims to owe everything to, yet she still follows the Old Ones commands. It seriously makes no since… 🤦🏽♀️ Mind you Kozu, the First Dragon and the one she has been hunting for years, has finally resurfaced and she then stops hunting him to complete the task of the Old One, the same Old One that goes against everything she believes in and her father.
I’m 213 pages in and am dreading having to finish it. I hate DFNing a book so I’m going to keep going, but man this book is not for me. I hate writing bad reviews but this is my honest opinion. I finally finished the book. In the end, this story is about a twisted and demented father who chose to manipulate this daughter into doing his bidding. Its about a broken girl who has believe a lie for years and at the end finally decided to use everything she has always know to put the truth together. So toward the end, the story got a little more interesting, but not by much. Now her brother is telling her to stay away from Torwin and so she is at the “avoiding stage”. 😒. So I finally finished the book and it ended as any typical YA book would end but with some much less flare. The girl killed the king, got rescued by the slave, and finally decided to let him love her and admit her feeling for him. The End. I wish it would have been so much better.
Moreover, the author keeps having the MC do things that she’s against and things she hates doing with no reason for her doing it. Example Asha’s a dragon hunter, the Old One gave her a majestic dragon and told her she was to protect it. She has threatened to kill it multiple times yet doesn’t. She’s following the Old Ones commands even though she has a “more important” task to do, her words. It makes no since…. If she is against the Old One why follow his commands. She was giving the command to only use her blades to correct a wrong. If she use the blades for any other reason than to correct a wrong it will hurt her, well killing Kozu (the First Dragon who burned the city and burned her face) doesn’t fall under that category and she isn’t correcting a wrong, why use the blades if she’s complaining about it????
No one is making her follow these commands and they go against everything she has been brought up to believe also they go against her father the king, the one she claims to owe everything to, yet she still follows the Old Ones commands. It seriously makes no since… 🤦🏽♀️ Mind you Kozu, the First Dragon and the one she has been hunting for years, has finally resurfaced and she then stops hunting him to complete the task of the Old One, the same Old One that goes against everything she believes in and her father.
I’m 213 pages in and am dreading having to finish it. I hate DFNing a book so I’m going to keep going, but man this book is not for me. I hate writing bad reviews but this is my honest opinion. I finally finished the book. In the end, this story is about a twisted and demented father who chose to manipulate this daughter into doing his bidding. Its about a broken girl who has believe a lie for years and at the end finally decided to use everything she has always know to put the truth together. So toward the end, the story got a little more interesting, but not by much. Now her brother is telling her to stay away from Torwin and so she is at the “avoiding stage”. 😒. So I finally finished the book and it ended as any typical YA book would end but with some much less flare. The girl killed the king, got rescued by the slave, and finally decided to let him love her and admit her feeling for him. The End. I wish it would have been so much better.
lisaesmee's review against another edition
4.0
I got sent this book for free by the lovely Stevie Finegan over at Gollancz (Orion Publishing). It's an uncorrected manuscript proof. I got it for free and I read it for free. This is my part of the generous exchange: a review.
Boy, oh boy. This book. I have a hard time figuring out how I can explain what I feel and why I feel it. This book is good but not amazing. It's clearly a debut novel which has both pros and cons. About 90 pages into the story I started to highlight and annotate in the book to immediately write down my thoughts as I was having a lot of them.
The Last Namsara tells the story of Asha, dragon-killer extraordinaire, daughter of the dragon king and betrothed to Jarek (aka Jarek the Jerk. I love his name since it's a play on the word JERK. Hence Jarek the Jerk or just Jerk from now on), who's some sort of general who climbed his way up to social ladder due to his charm *cough* blackmail. Asha was burned severely by the First Dragon when she was quite young, leaving her with the right side of her body scarred. She is about to marry Jerk w which obviously she doesn't want to, but her father gives her a way out. This is a chance she's willing to take even if it means her life.
Let me start by saying that this story really intrigued me. A female dragon hunter who bows down to no-one (except her father and Jerk). Her character developed nicely. She shed her past, learning that there is more to life than dragon killing and being her father's weapon. However, I do have some problems with her. Asha is supposed to be an amazing hunter having killed a lot of dragon. Hunters/warriors always know what weapons they are carrying and where they are strapped to their bodies. Asha more than once forgets that she's not carrying her slayers or axe. She reaches for them and then doesn't even remember where she left them. This might be a small thing and most people won't even notice, but as reader of lots of hunter/warrior stories, I find it annoying and bad character portrayal. A real hunter wouldn't do this, just saying. But Asha is a strong character who grows a lot in the book, which is something I highly appreciate. There are a few more little things that annoyed me about her but I can't write that her because they apply to the story.
The budding romance *eye roll* was predictable and not even necessary. The boy has BEAUTIFUL COLLARBONES *double eye roll*. Collarbones are just bones that stick out a little. Nothing beautiful about them. Moving on, the boy smiled a CROOKED SMILE *infinity eye roll*. Why does every boy character in YA have a crooked smile?! What's so endearing about them? I don't get it especially when everyone uses it. It has lost it's charm, I'd rather see a boy smile with his entire face. Moving on: SHE LET OUT THE BREATH SHE DIDN'T KNOW SHE WAS HOLDING *eternal eye roll*. Can y'all stop it with this sentence? Another overused YA trait.
There are a few parts in this book that don't flow together. A few times it seems like a chapter or a scene was cut from the manuscript without making the story flow again. Maybe that's only in the ARC copy hopefully, because it hinders the progress of the story.
Besides the original story, there were some developments that were quite obvious and I saw them coming from a mile away. Points for originality but -points for obvious choices.
To conclude: besides the small annoying traits (which a probably only an annoyance for me) the story is fabulous with great characters and a good development. I highly recommend it anyone who likes YA, fantasy and strong female characters. I give this book a 3.5 stars, rounding it up to a 4 star rating.
Boy, oh boy. This book. I have a hard time figuring out how I can explain what I feel and why I feel it. This book is good but not amazing. It's clearly a debut novel which has both pros and cons. About 90 pages into the story I started to highlight and annotate in the book to immediately write down my thoughts as I was having a lot of them.
The Last Namsara tells the story of Asha, dragon-killer extraordinaire, daughter of the dragon king and betrothed to Jarek (aka Jarek the Jerk. I love his name since it's a play on the word JERK. Hence Jarek the Jerk or just Jerk from now on), who's some sort of general who climbed his way up to social ladder due to his charm *cough* blackmail. Asha was burned severely by the First Dragon when she was quite young, leaving her with the right side of her body scarred. She is about to marry Jerk w which obviously she doesn't want to, but her father gives her a way out. This is a chance she's willing to take even if it means her life.
Let me start by saying that this story really intrigued me. A female dragon hunter who bows down to no-one (except her father and Jerk). Her character developed nicely. She shed her past, learning that there is more to life than dragon killing and being her father's weapon. However, I do have some problems with her. Asha is supposed to be an amazing hunter having killed a lot of dragon. Hunters/warriors always know what weapons they are carrying and where they are strapped to their bodies. Asha more than once forgets that she's not carrying her slayers or axe. She reaches for them and then doesn't even remember where she left them. This might be a small thing and most people won't even notice, but as reader of lots of hunter/warrior stories, I find it annoying and bad character portrayal. A real hunter wouldn't do this, just saying. But Asha is a strong character who grows a lot in the book, which is something I highly appreciate. There are a few more little things that annoyed me about her but I can't write that her because they apply to the story.
The budding romance *eye roll* was predictable and not even necessary. The boy has BEAUTIFUL COLLARBONES *double eye roll*. Collarbones are just bones that stick out a little. Nothing beautiful about them. Moving on, the boy smiled a CROOKED SMILE *infinity eye roll*. Why does every boy character in YA have a crooked smile?! What's so endearing about them? I don't get it especially when everyone uses it. It has lost it's charm, I'd rather see a boy smile with his entire face. Moving on: SHE LET OUT THE BREATH SHE DIDN'T KNOW SHE WAS HOLDING *eternal eye roll*. Can y'all stop it with this sentence? Another overused YA trait.
There are a few parts in this book that don't flow together. A few times it seems like a chapter or a scene was cut from the manuscript without making the story flow again. Maybe that's only in the ARC copy hopefully, because it hinders the progress of the story.
Besides the original story, there were some developments that were quite obvious and I saw them coming from a mile away. Points for originality but -points for obvious choices.
To conclude: besides the small annoying traits (which a probably only an annoyance for me) the story is fabulous with great characters and a good development. I highly recommend it anyone who likes YA, fantasy and strong female characters. I give this book a 3.5 stars, rounding it up to a 4 star rating.
caseymckvr's review against another edition
5.0
This book is amazing. It has three of my favorite thing: dragons, a coup, and a badass heroine all spun into a compelling and powerful story. It’s definitely a new favorite of mine, right up there with Throne of Glass and The Darkest Minds!
thetogaparty22's review against another edition
4.0
3.5
I honestly didn't expect to like this book as much as I did. I was pleasantly surprised by it. Usually I am ready to give all books with dragons 5 stars, but I'm trying to be less biased hahaha.
The Last Namsara is kind of like every other YA book, but that isn't a necessarily a bad thing. My favorite parts of the book were the stories - they had this magical air about them and I really loved reading about the lore of the world. I wish there were more. I also liked Asha's character. She was a total badass, but not when it came to her father and Jarek, and that made her more relatable and believable. I think the way her she was forced to think she was "corrupt" was done really well, and shows how deep emotional abuse and manipulation goes.
I obviously loved the dragons in the story and needed more (also need my own Kozu, thanks), and I think what would have made the story better was a deeper exploration of their relationship with humans, and just more information about them in general.
I think the romance was kinda cute but got a little bit annoying at the end when
My problems with the book were mainly the fact that some of the characters were pretty much useless and not fleshed out enough, and sometimes the plot got a bit repetitive and annoying. Also there were a lot of thing that went unexplained for no reason, like. I think Dax, Roa and Safire would have been amazing supporting characters, if they had more to do, and if we learned more about them. The last 100 pages could have definitely been cut down, a lot of things happened for the second or third time like , and other things were just unnecessary, like
All in all though, I did enjoy this book, and I will probably read the next one.
I honestly didn't expect to like this book as much as I did. I was pleasantly surprised by it. Usually I am ready to give all books with dragons 5 stars, but I'm trying to be less biased hahaha.
The Last Namsara is kind of like every other YA book, but that isn't a necessarily a bad thing. My favorite parts of the book were the stories - they had this magical air about them and I really loved reading about the lore of the world. I wish there were more. I also liked Asha's character. She was a total badass, but not when it came to her father and Jarek, and that made her more relatable and believable. I think the way her she was forced to think she was "corrupt" was done really well, and shows how deep emotional abuse and manipulation goes.
I obviously loved the dragons in the story and needed more (also need my own Kozu, thanks), and I think what would have made the story better was a deeper exploration of their relationship with humans, and just more information about them in general.
I think the romance was kinda cute but got a little bit annoying at the end when
Spoiler
Torwin kept trying to leave (didn't he try to leave like 5 times? what is the need?)My problems with the book were mainly the fact that some of the characters were pretty much useless and not fleshed out enough, and sometimes the plot got a bit repetitive and annoying. Also there were a lot of thing that went unexplained for no reason, like
Spoiler
Torwin being beat up at the camp and no one doing anything about it, or properly explaining why it happenedSpoiler
Asha getting "caught" by Jarek when she was trying to be stealthySpoiler
Asha stealing the flame. I get it was relevant to the Old One and what he wanted, but because this wasn't explained properly, it fell flatAll in all though, I did enjoy this book, and I will probably read the next one.
cgwhitley89's review against another edition
5.0
This book!
I was hesitant when reading the summary of this book, but I thought, “Hey, for $1.99, I could buy worse things.” So, I bought it and I am so grateful that I did! What a powerful gift of storytelling, but with the book itself and the little stories found in it chapters. Y’all, give it a try.
I was hesitant when reading the summary of this book, but I thought, “Hey, for $1.99, I could buy worse things.” So, I bought it and I am so grateful that I did! What a powerful gift of storytelling, but with the book itself and the little stories found in it chapters. Y’all, give it a try.