Author: Giselle Simlett
Published: December 29, 2015
Pages: 363
My Edition: DARC on my Kindle from Netgalley
Buy It: Kindle
Rating:
A girl with a past she tries to forget, and a future she can’t even imagine.
Leonie Woodville wants to live an unremarkable life. She wants routine, she wants repetition, she wants predictability. So when she explodes in a blaze of light one morning on the way to her college, it’s enough to put a real crimp in her day.
And things only get weirder…
Leonie learns from her father that she is last of the Pulsar, a phenomenally powerful member of a magical species called the Chosen. It will be her sole duty to protect the Imperium, a governing hierarchy, from all enemies, and to exceed the reputation of the Pulsar before her. So – no pressure there, then.
Leonie is swept away from her rigorous normality and taken to a world of magic. There, she is forced into a ceremony to join her soul to a guardian, Korren, who is both incredibly handsome and intensely troubled, a relationship for which ‘it’s complicated’ just really doesn’t cut it.
But Leonie is soon to learn that this ancient world is no paradise. With violent dissidents intent to overthrow the Imperium, and dark entities with their own agenda, she and Korren find themselves caught in a war where they will have to overcome their differences if they are to survive.
Dare to dream. Dare to hope. Dare to be a legend.
Leonie Woodville wants to live an unremarkable life. She wants routine, she wants repetition, she wants predictability. So when she explodes in a blaze of light one morning on the way to her college, it’s enough to put a real crimp in her day.
And things only get weirder…
Leonie learns from her father that she is last of the Pulsar, a phenomenally powerful member of a magical species called the Chosen. It will be her sole duty to protect the Imperium, a governing hierarchy, from all enemies, and to exceed the reputation of the Pulsar before her. So – no pressure there, then.
Leonie is swept away from her rigorous normality and taken to a world of magic. There, she is forced into a ceremony to join her soul to a guardian, Korren, who is both incredibly handsome and intensely troubled, a relationship for which ‘it’s complicated’ just really doesn’t cut it.
But Leonie is soon to learn that this ancient world is no paradise. With violent dissidents intent to overthrow the Imperium, and dark entities with their own agenda, she and Korren find themselves caught in a war where they will have to overcome their differences if they are to survive.
Dare to dream. Dare to hope. Dare to be a legend.
Girl of Myth and Legend is a story that kind of came out of left field for me. I saw it on Netgalley and both the cover and the story seemed interestingly enough that I wanted to read the ARC that was on the site. Surprisingly I got to download it immediately so I'm pretty excited that this is my first ARC review, whoo!
Anyway, I found this book super hard to put down and I just really devoured it. Now the bare bones of the story is pretty cliche, if I'm honest. It's your typical unassuming hero's journey. They don't seem like the hero, but find something inside or something otherwordly that makes them the hero and you as the reader follow their story. It's happened since forever and it will still happen. Some really good examples? Harry Potter and Percy Jackson come to mind. Either way, this book is a really great story on its own.
Simlett creates this whole world of the Imperium and that's what I love. I love stories that create their own world and make it different than anything else. In the world there are a variety of magic users and magic types--it really makes me want to know more about the world of the Imperium. I want to know what makes this society tick and I want to know its history etc. etc. Simlett does such a great job at bringing the reader into the world of the Imperium that we can connect to Leonie more because we are a newcomer to the world just as Leonie is.
Speaking of Leonie--I really liked Leonie's arc in the story. I've read some pretty harsh reviews about the book specifically on Leonie and I feel like people don't realize how far she's come from where's she's started in the beginning of GOMAL. Now Leonie hasn't pulled some Zuko from Avatar, but she's made some progress from her gloomy and anti-social personality. She's become a stronger version of herself by the end of the novel and I want to watch her grow and change. Leonie is running away from her past and from pretty traumatic events in her life, but that's what makes her grow as well (as we all do. Remember guys, we were just as bad as teenagers. Please.).
Leonie and Korren. Oh Leonie and Korren. I really like Leonie and Korren. I don't really see them as a romantic couple (I mean it's obvious that it's going to happen, but I don't). I really see their relationship as two people who've connected through their hardship. Like friends. Really good friends. Sure it's in a really short span of time, but I've had friends that I've made instant connections with in a short time. This didn't fully represent what my relationship with my best friend is, but we'd look out for each other the way Korren and Leonie looked out for each other. Actually, I was Korren and my best friend was Leonie haha. I really like how their relationship is forming.
Other than that? This book was just addictive. I wanted to just plow through the entire book and I wished I read faster. And then when it was over, I actually felt like the book was too short. I actually wanted the book to go further. It felt really abrupt the way it ended, but it just leaves me wanting more. I felt that certain things were a bit too long, but most of it felt a bit too short and rushed.
Some fair warning though, I got confused multiple times with how the dialogue is written. It's written with the one ' rather than the normal " so it was really difficult discerning the dialogue from the paragraph sometimes. I thought someone was speaking when they weren't and I had to back track. Though, this is more of a technical thing than a thing with the writing and I've read weirder things so it wasn't that bad.
Overall, I really enjoyed this novel and I want to follow the series. I can't wait for the next one.
