Stolen Songbird

Part of me wants to give this a 1-star. Man, I hardly know what to say. Two books – this one and Wintersong – that have similar subject matter (a girl is kidnapped and married/bonded to a goblin/troll in order to fulfill a prophecy, living underground, etc. etc.) ... both are just disappointing. Wintersong was boring, Stolen Songbird is cringe-inducing with the characters. Their love was barely believable, they acted like idiots, on and on it goes. Not going to finish the rest of the series, sorry.

This is one of the book i expect to love, coz some of my friend love it. But then it dissappoints me. Entah faktor krn male protagonist nya troll prince (yes, troll) but he is handsome of course, but still, troll??
Seperti judul trilogy nya, malediction (kutukan), menceritakan kalau negeri Troll yg bernama Trollus dikutuk oleh seorang penyihir manusia, ditimpa sebuah gunung hingga berada di bawah gunung & tdk seorang bangsa Troll pun bisa keluar dr batas2nya. Ada ramalan yg menyatakan akan ada manusia yg akan dinikahi & diikat oleh pangeran yg akan membebaskan negeri tsb dari kutukan. Sampai disini spt biasa bisa ditebak, si manusia & pangeran troll akan jatuh cinta beneran.
Okay, i don't know why but i don't buy it. But i still give credit to the idea of description of the troll that way different than some cartoons or other fantasy books. If you think you know about troll wait until you read this series.

This is a fun imaginative story of a girl forced to marry a Troll. It sounds rather typical but there are a lot of twists and turns to make the story interesting. There's some subtle discussion of class and prejudices that make it somewhat enlightening as well.

Kind of a spoilery review (Nothing specific is mentioned, I mostly gloss over certain things.)

Really flew through this one but I have to say that with all the hype I expected a bit more.

However, that is not to say that the world-building wasn't rich and the characters undynamic but overall the ending was a let down. It didn't resolve anything and didn't answer any of the million of the burning questions created throughout the book.

I didn't expect for the book to be so heavy on the politics and the royal family but it was a nice surprise. What I didn't enjoy was the time the protagonist wasted on miscellaneous activities. I understand that they served their purpose of introducing her to the troll city but it seemed wasteful because of the fact that it didn't serve any purpose for advancing the plot line or being useful to the reason why she was there.

While having said that, I really did like Cecile's character, far more than I liked Tristan's. I wished the author had utilized her singing more in this book because why else introduce us to her amazing talent in the beginning and then use it as infrequently as possible? I didn't like Tristan as much because even though he could acknowledge his flaws in the brief snippets from his perspective, he did nothing to rectify them. Prime example being his secret-keeping. I despise nothing more than misunderstandings between the main character(s) and their circle. This seems a tad ironic since I really do enjoy politics in my fantasy books. I just don't like easy misunderstandings that lead to stupid, well-intentions-gone-awry actions when they can just as easily be avoided by telling the truth. (Another irony, seeing as the trolls can't lie.) That is one of my biggest pet peeves in books: when STUPID STUPID actions can be avoided just by telling the truth, just by showing a little faith that the person you are telling it to won't stab you in the back.

Although, I went off on a tangent there it still applies to Stolen Songbird. For goodness' sake, Tristan and Cecile are bonded, they can feel what the other is feeling and while it many not be wholly reliable, wouldn't Tristan be able to feel if Cecile had any malicious intent towards him? And he even follows her and can know where she is, and yet he still thinks she would rat him out at the drop of a hat?

Again I digress. I have to give Stolen Songbird its proper props. (If you've read the book, do you think Vincent and Victoria would like that little bit of alliteration?? :) I fundamentally believe that if the book didn't have the solid foundation of world-building that it does I wouldn't be able to go on and on about its flaws. There can only be this amount of passion if I really thought the book deserved better. Otherwise, why would I bother?

I do recommend this book to fantasy lovers, and those that enjoy poli-fan will get an additional kick out of it. I've only put off reading this for so long because I didn't think that there was a sequel due to the cancellation of titles from Strange Chemistry. But I believe that Angry Robot published the rest of the trilogy due to high demand. (If anyone knows the specifics, I'd love to know.)

I honestly don't know if I'm going to pick up the rest of the trilogy, anyway, because the ending did not satisfy me at all. And I didn't get enough of the side characters to really fall in love with any of them. I really wish there had been more about them because I loved the snippets of Vincent and Victoria's antics, and I loved learning about the miners. Sigh, more potential lost.

This book is impossible to put down once the story starts moving. I picked it up thinking it'd be a nice fantasy read. IT WAS MUCH MORE THAN THAT. It has everything I love in a story: a good political drama, solid world-building, lovable characters, development, gradual romance, nice interaction, and clever twists. It's definitely not what I expected, but the story just pulls you in and refuses to let go until you're done.

...and when I'm done, the book left me crying and screaming in my mind because of how it ended.

WHY.

The second book is coming out next year in June. I'll be weeping until then.

I've read enough fantasy books that I have a pretty clear idea in my head what trolls look like. They're big and green. Preferably hairless, but if they have hair it's kind of rust colored and has the texture of a wire-bristle brush. They're kind of squish-faced with protruding tusks. Basically, a cross between an ogre and a hobgoblin.

The trolls in this book are nothing like that. In fact, I would most compare these trolls to elves. Some of them are exquisitely beautiful, but with an otherworldly wrongness to them, and others are disfigured horribly. They have a very limited worldview: human's are little more than half intelligent beasts-of-burden (blessed with opposable thumbs) and half-breeds are slaves for life.

I will admit, the first issue I took with this book was how gorgeous the main guy is. Not that it was truly unexpected, I was just half hoping that, with the physical appearance of the other trolls that he would be a little less perfect looking. And no, no matter how books try to convince you otherwise, there really isn't such a thing as too perfect.

While I am very glad that Tristan wasn't a ‘satellite character' and had his own story outside of being a love interest, I cannot help but think that I would have been much more interested in the book had it followed him instead of Cecile. The small clips we got to see from him in the first third of the book did nothing to quench my interest in his story.

I really liked the setting for the story though. It was actually French influenced - and that's rather unusual for fantasy stories. Though I'm not really sure if this was supposed to take place on earth, or in a fantasy world. There were mentions of traveling to ‘the continent'. But, for as much as I liked this idea, nothing was explained.

Cecile was, honestly, the bane of this book. She's wonderful. She's strong. She is the prophesied, but she fails. Seriously, how can this girl go wrong? Well, she did. She did shortly after she was bound to a certain handsome prince. With this bonding, she's able to sense his emotions. She cannot tell what he's thinking, but she can feel his fear, excitement and everything else. Makes me wonder if she could feel his indigestion.

She soon became all consumed in Tristan, even when he gave her no reason to be. She was extremely stupid while in ‘love'. If she could have kept some of that bravery and feisty-ness, I think I would have actually liked this book, even for the world building flaws.

(Originally posted on my blog: http://pagesofstarlight.blogspot.com/)

After sitting on it for a night, I realize that I didn't really care about the characters in this book and the world building was not that compelling for me. I was certainly intrigued at first, but I just wasn't all that fascinated with the progression of the plot.

Technically, I wasn't displeased with the characters, but I wasn't invested in them. I couldn't connect with their struggle, I didn't feel the love they had for each other. I still don't get how/when Cecile fell in love with the prince. They barely spent any time together.

Even after the huge cliffhanger it ended with I'm still not all that convinced I want to find out what happens.