the desert prince, by peter v brett

i received a copy of the desert prince from harper collins nz in exchange for an honest review.

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star rating

★★★★

the desert prince – review

the desert prince wasn’t at all what i’d expected. it was a fantastic book, that kept me hooked from the start, and didn’t leave me wanting for more. it was the perfect read.

“I am Olive, I tell him. That is all that matters.”

i admit, i was a little daunted when i first picked this book up – it’s massive! in saying that, there was some moments that felt too descriptive. there’d be descriptions for every place and character, which could be the author doing an excellent job at world building. but for the first book, it felt irrelevant. it didn’t advance the plot or the characters in any way. i’m sure there are some people out there who love the over descriptiveness, but it doesn’t work for me.

aside from (some) of the waffly paragraphs, my only other issue with the writing is the local slang. again, this could work really well for some people, but personally, i felt it threw me out of the world and made me confused.

despite all this, i still loved the book.

my absolute favourite part about the whole thing is the intersex character. i won’t go into much detail, as i don’t want to ruin anything, but i felt it was so well written. i loved seeing them figure out who they want to be (in terms of gender identity). being a topic that’s not normally included in fantasy novels, i feel that peter v brett did a wonderful job.

“You are who you want to be,” Mother said. “And no matter what, I love you and will always be there for you.”

one thing that confused me as the family tree. even now, there are some characters i feel like are related, but after going over the family tree on the authors website, they don’t appear to have any relations. there’s a lot of use of “brother” and “sister”, despite them not being related, which led to the confusion. (i’d also like to point out that some aunties are the same age/younger and some sisters are the same age as their aunties. it’s very consufing, although realistic)

i really loved the romance in this novel – it wasn’t too much. it was the right amount to give the characters some feelings without overclouding the plot.

as for the character development – it was phenomenal. i loved seeing my favourite characters grow, and become strong.

My heart aches for that girl, but she isn’t me, anymore.

and one last thing to nitpick: the lack of pov tags. the pov will change mid chapter, and i wouldn’t realise. i hoped that the further into the book i got, the easier it’d be to differentiate who was who, but it wasn’t. i’d have to wait for the character to be called by their name to realise who’s pov i was in.

all that aside, the desert prince is a spin off series! i didn’t realise this prior to reading, and it didn’t hinder my reading experience whatsoever. the author’s website says the desert prince is set 15 years after the events in the demon cycle.

overall, i’m glad i read the desert prince. i can see it being one of my favourites for this year. and if you haven’t read it yet, you should stop what you’re doing and go pick it up asap!

buy your copy now!

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