☼Bookish in Virginia☼ 's Reviews > The Sea of Trolls

Hmmm. This is one of those books where you should ignore the star ratings and find a reviewer with similar tastes to try and determine if you should give it a try. Which is to say that while I only gave "Sea of Trolls" 3-Stars. I can see why other people, especially younger readers, would love it. The story is interesting and there's lots of adventure. Plus the writing is decent... so what's not love, right?

Well, I found a couple of things that detracted from the reading experience. The first was that the plot could have been tighter. There were times, for example, when whole scenes could have been deleted without any harm. And certainly towards the end I began to skim because the 'adventure' was more tedious than exciting; and it felt like 'good deeds' were being done so that these points could be spent in the next book.

The second detraction was that the book seemed to flip-flop between being a book for a younger audience versus being one for Young Adults. I noticed this most in the conversations and place descriptions. Sometimes they'd seem less serious and more playful.


Overall, the best part was how the facts were woven into the story. The secondary characters were far more interesting than Jack who suffered from just having 'stuff happen to him'. He was basically the same at the beginning of the book as at the end. Plot-wise there was nothing terribly innovative. Farmer writes well though and I'm hoping book II will be better.