Updraft

Everything was there at the first chapters. A nice premise, a promising world, interesting writing. And then all went downhill for me.

First things first. My main issue was with the narrator. Kirit... what an overachiever! Her only defect was what made her "special". I lost interest in the story as soon as I realized that no matter how stupid or selfish she was, she never really faced any dire consequences. So when she actually started rebelling for the right reasons it had gotten too old to care. The cast was pretty long, at some point I lost track who was who with all that name dump, without any real character development to accompany the name. The villain was wooden. If you spent most of the time reading dark/gritty fantasy that guy would seem laughable.

Anyway, now that I got these things out of my chest I can be more coherent. The writing style was pretty, literate. The premise wasn't explored to its full potential in my humble opinion, as I wouldn't care less for that city. I would like to know about the Rising! But nope... We stuck up there, in a cardboard world, with the "tradition" and the singing and an easy to guess twist. After the first few chapters even the bloody flying got old... How can you do this to me?!

Don't get me wrong. There are some really nicely done scenes, scattered all over the book. The ending was as epic as they come. It is good enough to keep you reading, even though you want to struggle Kirit in the process.

I'm sorry to say, but I can see a love triangle coming pretty soon in the series. So yep... I hoped this wouldn't be another ya dystopia covered under the wings of high fantasy. I really hoped, after all those raving arc reviews, that this one would be fresh and exciting. Once more, high expectations ruined a book for me.

All in all, an interesting, but flawed book.