Child of a Mad God

I have so much in the way of mixed feelings about this book.

The main characters have excellent situational potential. The world contains characters and peoples with different backgrounds and reasons for them. There is interesting magic and danger. There are many events X people that move the plot. So much good here.

Unfortunately, there are repeated thoughts and phrases. Characters come to the same or the cusp of the same realization multiple times. There is violence and rape for the sake of violence and rape. There are oddities that don't seem to have a reason (such as the shape of the lake tribe heads) that comes up again and again. A bunch of little things bring the reader to mind that you are indeed reading a story and no longer immersed.

I wanted this book to be better. I'm not sure if I'll read the rest of the series.

I received this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

DNF@15%

I should say up front that I've never read a book by R.A. Salvatore. I've seen the author's name around and have been interested in some of the books, so when I saw this book show up on Netgalley and was interested in the summary, I thought this would be a good chance to try out a new high fantasy author.

Unfortunately, this didn't work out for me.

I understand it is a long book, so 15% is really only about 70 pages, but Aoelyn who is supposedly the main character is still a child–and not on her own. She also doesn't narrate most of the book thus far. So, I didn't feel like I was getting what I signed up for. I decided to think of this as a very slow beginning and was trying to go with it. In fact, I liked Talmadge's chapters.

So, why did I stop?
Totally a personal preference.
This book is a bit too brutal for me.
Sometimes I'm okay with it, but other times... I'm just too sensitive. When one of the tribes attacks another tribe there is a slaughter and so much rape. How some things are handled made me super uncomfortable too. While Aoelyn dos seem to understand that some of what she sees is wrong, I didn't want to wait until she was grown and ready to (hopefully)fully condemn her tribe's practices.

I suppose this is one way of saying the author has a way of pulling you in, making scenes emotional and rough. There is no mistaking this as bad writing. Everything flows well, I think. I'm just too sensitive a soul for all the raping, slaving, and general horribleness.

Honestly, if someone tells me to give this book another try, I probably will. At this point, I just need that reassurance that these poor women will one day be saved.
This is a book I will recommend to people wanting high fantasy with female characters, although I'll warn them about the slow build up (meant to build the world and set the stage for Aoelyn) and be prepared for the horrid side of war.