Boredom from too much narration.

The book reads like an outline of events. Told one after another after another. I had high hopes for this as I love historical fiction but it just doesn’t deliver on much meat and potatoes of the story. The scope is perhaps too big. The time period too long and the ambition too much for this short of a book. It was all rushed through. It seemed to be a means to something else, but in planning this epic adventure, Morales forgot to live in the moment.

I wish this book had more scenes and stolen moments, maybe set up by some narration. Not small scenes of friends or lovers which set up large swaths of narration of time and events. That was basically the whole second half of the book.

Not to pile on, and I hope the other books in the series get better, but the protagonist, Will, has zero original thoughts of his own. He is a blank slate. He is uninteresting. And once Thomas is an established character, he drives more of the plot in his POV chapters. Very disappointing.

Audio was fine, though I think this narrator is better at older adults than teens. Something about his voice. I’ve thought that in all the books I’ve listened to with him. But I get used to it usually. This one it smears more problematic though because they weren’t speaking like young adults. The characters were heady and it constantly took me out of the story.