Sorcerer to the Crown

Book Title: Sorcerer to the Crown

Author: Zen Cho

Series: Sorcerer Royal #1

Date Started: March 1st 2021

Date Completed: March 10th 2021

Genres: Fantasy, Mystery, Historical

Quality Rating: Three Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Three Stars

Review:

I had high hopes for this book, and while it was an okay story with glimmers of originality - and a whimsicality to it that I love and wish would be more common in fantasy novels - it was a little slow and dense for my tastes. Part murder-mystery, part magic school (somehow some romance ends up in there), there's a lot of things going on that all weave into each other a little too conveniently for me.

I have a note in my book about the flippant way the narrator talks about women being delicate, blatant classism, and how freely use racial slurs, even though it's all portrayed as bad - and yes, I understand it's commenting on the backwards attitudes of the world it's set in. As this shifts later into the book as the characters become more mature, I'm not going to fully go into it here, but the first chunk of the book gave me pause and wasn't the most fun to read because of it.

What I think made this book inaccessible for me was how awkwardly the prose was written. There are some sentences that nail the old-fashioned language and rhythm, but the rest of it is so jumbled and dense that the characters' arcs and meaning come across as second best. It makes the whole thing, though written in a very complicated way, actually come across quite childish as everyone seems way more shallow than they're intended to be.

There's actually a wonderful diversity in this book, and nice dynamics between the characters - I just wish there wasn't such obvious, pedantic and over-explanatory narration plastered all over it and that we were given the space to watch the characters do their thing instead.

Sorcerer to the Crown was a fun, kinda-easy read, but it would've been more enjoyable for me if the writing had been smoother. I was given the sequel for review by the publisher, so will likely continue the series if only to complete that - but with this story wrapped up (conveniently) very well, I'm interested where Cho will take the characters next.