The Circle of Tivedon (The Circle of Tivedon #1) by Ryan Shorten

Attending Tivedon should have been the most exciting time in Jayl's young life. However, when inexplicable things begin to darken the hallowed halls of of the school and he's accused of murder, Jayl finds himself thrust into a quest to save himself, his home, and ultimately all of Tiertyn itself.

~Taken from the back of the book.


My Thoughts/Review:

The Circle of Tivedon was an imaginative novel, brimming with journeys and danger, as any good fantasy should be. A fantasy just isn't complete without a journey, don't you think? Anywho, back on subject. This book progressed nicely, and it was a quick read, but I did have a few problems with it.

For one, it was to my understanding that this was a YA novel, not a MG novel, but it certainly reads more like middle-grade. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, I just think that it would make a bigger impact as MG. Why, you ask? Because most of the characters came off as juvenile. I had myself convinced through most of the book that all the main characters were 12-13 at most, but we find out later on that they're all late teens! (I'm assuming--Jayl has BEARD STUBBLE.)

Also, towards the end of the book, it seems like all the characters start to mature, and then it becomes oh-so-obvious that they're a bit older than they appear at first glance. And that none of them trust each other. High fantasy at it's best.

The atmosphere was remarkably well done! I really felt like I was being fully immersed into the fantasy world that Mr. Shorten had created, but I kind of thought that this book was a more modern, less long version of Lord of the Rings, with more school and less mythical creatures. Which is good, but it made it a tad bit confusing at times, because I JUST CAN'T HELP IT. I'm going to compare it LotR.

On another note, I often found myself speed-reading to figure out what happened next, and then I would find that I didn't know how I'd gotten from one place to another--so yeah. All in all, I enjoyed The Circle of Tivedon, but I would've loved to have seen more character development and less skip-from-one-point-of-view-to-the-other syndrome. At one point, I had even forgotten that one of the characters existed! But I will be reading the next book in this series--I have to know what happens!

*This book was provided by the author for review.