It was written very well, just wasn’t my cup of tea. I would still recommend this to others though

I really wanted to like this book, but unfortunately I got so frustrated while reading it I had to DNF at 40%.
 
This book starts off well and interesting, the way Candace describes the characters and the scenes is very well put together, but it's when the events of the book start to pick up is where it lost me. I found the book's pacing  off, one moment your living in the moment with the characters with good descriptions and dialogue; the next its jumping about too fast to follow. I felt like I was thrown into the middle of certain events and had no idea what was going on, and I started to get frustrated and found I wasn't caring as much as I should have. 

I personally found there wasn't enough  world building, at 40% through I would've liked more of an idea of how this world works and how magic fits into the lives of the main characters. But I still have no clue as to how the magic works in this world, or why Naomi's is different and sort after. 

I initially liked the main character of Naomi, she came across as headstrong and intriguing. But almost immediately after seemingly getting kidnapped be him, Naomi trusts Reynolds with her life; all because some women she's never met talks to her. This trust came on way too fast and without much explanation and I really didn't like it. Especially because from then on, Naomi relies on him way too much, just too naive and unrealistic for me to get on with. 

I had to DNF this book because there was no sign of an overarching story by 40%, not even a hint of one, just a mention to the character 'Browneyes' who may have been a bad character.. This book feels like a overly long prologue, I understand that this is book one of a series but I still expect understand the world, magic and see some sort of build up of a overall narrative by 40%. 

This book has the potential to be good and some of the more polished writing reminded me of Red Queen or The Novice, which are books that I love. But there just wasn't enough of that writing for me to carry on reading. Overall the lack of worldbuilding and lack realistic characters just left me frustrated and confused.

Vivatera by Candace J. Thomas intrigues me with its magic and fast pace. Naomi and Reynolds kind of have an instalove connection except Naomi does not realize it until Reyn leaves and the thing I loved the most about this book is that the love interest is separate from each other for most of the book. 
I did not see half the twists coming which is impressive. However, I feel like Zander and the group he was with became forgotten in the end. I am anxiously awaiting the second book to see what happens.
For my full review check out my blog https://bookgirlreviewsbooks.blogspot.com

4.5 stars.

Both fantasy and magical elements combine to make this story a very fun YA read!  Through beautiful writing and wonderful description, I found myself very involved in this compelling world as it unfolded page by page.  I felt the full gambit of emotions and was spellbound (!) by the plot as I learned more about each character.  The mystery that ensues has me wanting more and highly anticipating the second installment, which is sure to be a hit as well!  Well done!

Vivatera is the first in a Young Adult fantasy series that focuses on Naomi, who discovers secret powers in herself and a bunch of other people. Add to this an interesting magic system, a corrupted king and something like a magic school and I was sure to take the bait.

This was a fun, quick read. The story starts quickly and I was drawn into the story from the beginning. There is just enough mystery and guessing to make you want to continue, and while I first read it as part of all the books I'm currently reading, I decided to give it some priority and after that finished it almost in one sitting.

While I liked the story and the magic seems complex, in the sense that it is eating the people from the inside out since humans are not supposed to mingle with magic, Naomi I liked less. She was the typical sort of perfect, much more special than anyone else kind of girl which is kind of cringe-worthy. It was why I liked the secondary plot arc, following Zander, more, even though Naomi was the one who was kind of in magic school.

I will probably read the second book also.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

The cover and description are what got me reading this book. Vivatera had a lot of potential but the way it was executed left much to be desired and in the end, this book fell flat.

 I didn't like that we are thrown into an adventure without having much backstory or worldbuilding- yes, it adds suspense because it makes me want to read to find out more but if I don't get to know the characters and understand them then what cause should I have to root for them? 

Additionally, I wanted more worldbuilding. Although it's more developed at the end, I wish it was woven in rather than info-dumped in the last 30 or so pages.

Naomi wasn't a terrible protagonist- I liked that she was brave and (mostly) intelligent but I feel like she relied on Reynolds too much that it took away from her character. It feels like the romance between them is very forced and it's the typical cliche- naive girl with special powers meets a mysterious boy who can help her find the answers to her mysterious upbringing. There's very little to this that makes it stand out among other YA couples and if it were better developed I think I would've appreciated it more. 

I did like Zander though. I enjoyed his narrative and how his subplot with Silexa connected to the main plot and added to the intrigue.

Moreover, I don't find it believable that a young woman who has gone out of her way to protect her identity goes running off with a total stranger because he *might* have some answers to her mysterious scar. Granted, Naomi is very trusting and comes off as very naive but still.

I almost DNFed because I wasn't very engaged in the plot. The only reason I kept reading was to figure out what the marking meant. The ending was the high point of the novel when things kind of picked up and I was actually interested for the last 50 pages or so.

This book had a lot of potential to be a great book but it didn't have that effect on me. I might wind up reading the sequel on a whim but for now I'm putting the series aside.

*Thank you to NetGalley and Shadesilk Press for providing a free ARC*

LGBTQ: None
People of Color: People with non-white skin are included, but many of these are humanoid people with deep ties to the earth or magic
Bechdel Test: A hesitant pass. There are women who do things other than support men but love interests reign supreme. The dominant female character trope is "damsel in distress."
Trigger Warning: Naomi does have a stalker for part of the book.

The reader follows a number of young characters, but the dominant characters are Naomi, Zander, and Reynolds. Naomi is an orphan who has more than the average charm. Zander is Naomi's friend who suffers dearly when the king's men fail to capture Naomi. He ends up as an attendant to the prince. Naomi has a hidden protector, a rogue magic-wielder named Reynolds, who steps out of the shadows when the king's men realize she may have magic. Naomi and Reynolds have an instant connection and Reynolds decides he must leave Naomi before her charm overcomes his iron will. She is left at a magic encampment to learn about her gifts and to meet other wielders. Magic is not born in a person but usually is the result of an accident where natural elemental magic is involved. Naomi decides she must go in search of Reynolds after she has a distressing vision about him, Several other campers decide to accompany her. The book records her, Reynolds, and Zander's adventures (with other minor characters stepping in with their point of view from time to time). They meet interesting people, we learn more about the magic system and how it is threatened, and we meet the king who has been driven mad by the desire for magic.

The basic premise was interesting and I think there is a lot of potential for the series. I particularly liked Zander as well as Ferra and her spunky attitude.

I did not feel much of a connection with either Reynolds or Naomi. I also was not invested in their love story. The reasons why certain characters do things (especially Naomi) was very flimsy. Zander, the sisters, etc. felt like they had much more compelling reasons to move their stories as well as the narrative itself along. I think if the book had one more good edit, it would be in great shape.

The violence was not overly gruesome, there is some bad language but not much, and there are no sexual episodes. For these reasons, I would recommend it as suitable for middle school and up.

Summary
Naomi never knew her parents. She doesn't know where her scar came from or why does she have dreams that sometimes come true. But one day she crosses paths with a stranger that seems to carry all of the answers. He's just not willing to share them.


Writing
The writing style is very simple and easy to read, though during more action-packed scenes it gets a little chaotic. It sometimes can make a scene feel a bit jumbled, almost like there is a sentence or two missing here and there.


I really liked the way dream sequences were written. I am usually not a fan of them, because most of the books tend to portray dreams as comprehensive, almost movie-like moments. But in Vivatera the dream feels like an actual dream - a set of images, sounds and feelings that sometimes just simply seems like it makes absolutely no sense.


Characters
Naomi is one of those characters that I hate seeing most in literature – she's absolutely flawless. She doesn't have any bad characteristics other than the fact that she's incredibly gullible (but even then it's showed as a "cute" thing). She's absolutely beautiful, strong, intelligent, a little quirky and of course, most importantly, she's The Chosen One™.


Zander – Naomi's friend – is a pretty fun character. He's adorable and insanely loyal, but just like her, he's waaay too perfect to feel like a real person.


And Reynolds is incredibly frustrating. His only characteristic is that he cares about Naomi and he's Very Strong. He's a love interest, nothing more. A prop.


The romance is absolutely ridiculous. The characters spend like 3 days together and they were willing to die for each other. I am not totally against the insta-love trope, I think it can be done right. But you need to make your characters at least talk to each other first.


The interactions between the characters rarely feel believable. Their attempts at communication seem insanely unnatural, because every character is constantly keeping some kind of secret that they are not willing to share at the moment and they dance around the topic or they release information in bits and pieces, which is a really cheap way of trying to create an interesting mystery.


Plot
This book has a pretty even pacing and it never managed to bore me. That said, it was very predictable. And all of the good plot twists were ruined by really crappy attempts at foreshadowing. It made everything waaaaay too obvious.

The story itself is pretty interesting, but the way it started doesn't feel very well thought-out. For example, I don't think anyone would throw an 12-year-old boy into the deepest dungeon to be tortured and have his father killed, simply for throwing a couple of walnuts at a guard.

I think that the ending was the best part of the book. It was filled with action and it actually made me feel invested in the story.

Overall
It's a pretty decent book with a classical fantasy vibe. It's a fun, quick read, but definitely not a memorable one.

This story has a lot of potential. The characters a decently developed and the idea really excited me. Unfortunately, I didn't really connect while I was reading it. From the beginning, it somewhat felt like I was forcing myself to read the story. I definitely did not hate the story and I see a lot of positives for this story plot wise. Even if it wasn't for me, I know there will be plenty of people that enjoy this story. 

I know for sure I'm going to have to give this a re-read just to make sure it isn't just me, because I have been doing a lot of reading lately. I mostly glossed over a lot of the book during slow portions. I really do want to give this another shot later on, but right now the story just didn't give me what I was expecting.

Unfortunately, this book just didn't work for me. I thought I would like it, but something just wasn't clicking.

I was so excited to read this book, after looking at the copyright page I realized that this was a previously published book. I haven't read the original copy of this book, so I'm not sure what has been changed with the plot or editing inside. The cover and blurb grabbed my attention immediately. I however, thought that the relationships were rushed, like instant love, which I don't think is believable or well developed. The characters needed to be fleshed out more as well. The plot I also felt was a bit bland in parts and throughout the book I kept asking myself. "Why do I care?" I feel like the magic was messy, and also a lot of confusing parts, especially the dreams. It was a great premise, but poorly executed in every way that I can think of.

I requested this arc thinking it was a new book not just a reprint/release. That is my fault for not doing research on the book before requesting it. Though I can say the new cover is better then the last one. 
As for the story I am not sure if it is better or not as I didn't read the original. Thinking of this story though I feel if this is a better version then the first book had to have been very lacking of everything. I felt this book was lacking depth in the story and the world building. I am not a fan of the insta love that happens with the characters in the story either. This could have been a way better book then it turned out to be.

This is just another reprint that fails to get better.  It still has a lot of potentials but this one still fails to have a good all-around concept.  I felt like the author forgot to add world building and backstory and gave it all to us at the end of the book instead throughout or at the start.  Which really hindered my enjoyment of the story.  Not having this information at the start and then having it show up at the end was really weird. The other thing that this book had was insta-love which sometimes works but sometimes does not and this time it just didn't.  I think with some more tweaking this one could be an amazing story but it just felt way to confusing and not well plotted out.

Vivatera, part of the award-winning YA fantasy series of the same name, was previously published in 2013 to critical acclaim, but I have to admit I found it tough to get through from the very beginning. The worldbuilding and magic system weren't explained enough and left a lot to be desired, and no matter how hard I tried simple couldn't connect with the characters. There desperately needed to be more backstory, and although the premise was a great one with bucketloads of potential it fell flat due to poor execution.

The insta love dropped into the plot out of nowhere felt contrived and superficial adding further issues. The pace needed to be quicker and the whole novel felt bland, and, at times, boring. That said, I didn't see the ending coming which was satisfying. I'm interested to know whether I'd like the second instalment better than this, so I will likely pick it up to see whether anything's changed.

Many thanks to Shadesilk Press for an ARC.

Thank you to Netgalley and Shade Silk Press for the ARC. 

What isn't made clear from the start is that this is a re-release of a previous series, so is it actually an ARC?

DNF at 32% - I just couldn't get into this book at all. I tried really hard to persevere but I just couldn't stay engaged. I was re-reading sentences several times because I wasn't taking anything in.

Usually, when I start a good book, every spare minute I have, I pick it up. Unfortunately, with Vivatera, I've been finding anything to do that isn't reading this book. 

I think for me, there wasn't enough information from the very beginning. The world building was massively lacking. I understand that there shouldn't be an information dump right at the beginning of a novel, but there wasn't nearly enough for me. I like to know enough about something to create an image in my mind. 
The magic system wasn't explained very well so it left me confused in places. 

I couldn't connect with the characters and the romance sub-plot didn't really do anything for me. The romance was just dropped in, it wasn't developed and seemed a bit unconvincing. I wasn't at all invested. The whole thing just felt a bit "flat".

It really had the potential to be great, the idea is a good one, it just didn't quite meet my expectations. It may suit a younger audience.

I may try and revisit it again soon, but for now, I am abandoning the book.

I hate giving bad reviews, especially when I know that the author's heart and soul must have gone into that book. It is nothing personal to the author, and I'm sure it is a good book, it just wasn't for me.

This book seemed like it tried to come off as fast paced, but it was boring and seemed to drag on. I was really excited to read it from the beautiful cover and the description, but it fell flat. I love magic and secrets and finding out who you are but this book wasn't doing it for me.

2.5 stars rounded up here. Whew, this book is sitting on what I feel is a mountain of potential with the plot concept/premise. Unfortunately for me the way it was executed really put a damper on all that potential. The main problem, for me, is that all the backstory and world building actually occur at the end of the book, almost like an afterthought. Throughout most of the book I was agonizing over the lack of backstory and world building, thinking this must be a spin off of sorts.. I checked twice to make sure it was actually the first in the series. Even if an author wants to do a slow reveal on word building and backstory and maybe keep certain things to the end as a mystery there has to be something in the beginning alluding to the fact that eventually we might get some answers. There were also several instances where climactic parts of the story would vaguely end without much detail and cut to another chapter. I personally obviously like details and explanations of how things have occurred.

These things in particular needed to be at the beginning.. or at least hinted about, and revealed throughout the plot: A hint of or the actual prophecy at the beginning of the book, or at least a description of the different races so we know what they are throughout the book, that way when they do something "different" it makes some sense, or explaining vaguely towards the beginning.. maybe in a prologue or something the events that have lead us to now, like the old kings history, or the history of how the magic came to be in this world, or the history of the stones themselves.... Not having this information really hurt the plot in my opinion because it took away from the actual story which was really interesting and could have been riveting.

We have some really abrupt insta love in this story. That isn't really my thing but I can get on board if it seems to have some sort of foundation but here it really didn't have enough of anything. It was a tad jarring even where it popped up in the story, it seemed to be necessary for Naomi to exit camp but not for Reynolds? Either way, I feel like there should have been more prior to the proclamation.. like maybe a recognition, or maybe even dreaming about a boy hero.. or something. 

That all being said.. There was enough explanations at the very end of the book to answer most of the questions I had and to ease some of my anxiety and frustration. I am sad at where the book ended, things were just starting to make sense and we come to an abrupt end just as I started to feel we were actually getting somewhere. I am torn between wanting to see what will happen next for these characters and not wanting to put myself through it..

*Received a copy via NetGalley and the Publisher Shadesilk Press in exchange for an honest review.*
This review also available on my blog:
https://allthatmess.com/2019/02/19/book-stop-arc-review-vivatera-by-candace-j-thomas/

3.5 Stars

Magical. Familiar.

Vivatera follows a girl named Naomi who, after an odd event in the market of her town, is whisked away by the mysterious Reynolds. Reynolds insists that she has to be kept safe and hidden and they begin their journey to a camp of sorts with other people like her. People with magic. Through her adventures, she discovers what power lies inside her and who she truly is.

Though many of the elements in this book are familiar, it was still in intriguing concept with a lot of potential for the author to really put her spin on things. As interested as I was, I was disappointed to find that everything--the characters, the magic, the world, etc.--was all a bit out of focus.

First and foremost, the pacing was kind of odd, which made many scenes a little confusing to read. Things happened quickly, but it felt like it took awhile for the actual story to take off. There were several essential moments in the story that were a bit too glossed over. I also would have liked more build up in the beginning before everything goes to ruins. The prologue was good, though, again, familiar, but the first chapter definitely felt rushed. I didn’t get a good sense of normalcy before Naomi was kidnapped. 

Also, random note: the beginning of the first chapter shows two characters, Naomi and Zander, but we don’t learn Naomi’s age (17) until several pages later, while we know Zander is quite a bit younger (12, I think?) and before we’re told her age, there’s nothing to suggest that Naomi isn’t that young as well.

While we’re on the topic of characters, I did, on the surface, like the characters, but as I mentioned earlier, they were also not fully solid. Many of them had great potential to be complex and the root of some good conflict, but they were too two dimensional. I didn’t really connect with any of them, including Naomi, and the hinted at romance between Naomi and Reynolds did not have enough substance for me to really get on board.

The characters that I felt had the most potential were Zander, Bryant, Taren. Zander, while Naomi is off with the magic people, gets taken under the wing of the prince Bryant to work at the castle, where he finds his own adventure. Zander is young, but feels older and I could imagine him playing a much bigger role. Bryant and Taren are out resident morally gray characters, Taren especially. Morally gray characters are always the best. You’re not sure whether to trust them, but they’re still intriguing and you can’t get enough. Unfortunately, even these characters fell a little flat and I can only hope they show up better than before in the rest of the series.

The world and magic were definitely interesting aspects of the story, but again and frustratingly, they were not very clear. I could not get a good grasp of how everything worked. I will enjoy just about any story with magic in it, but I usually like to have an idea of the rules, etc. of the magic system. This book gets a pass, as Naomi is new to all of this, but I still needed just a little bit more.

Overall I did like this story on the surface and my interest was piqued, but without fully understanding the world and magic or being invested in the story and characters, it was difficult for me to really enjoy it. Although, I was left with many questions as the end that I would still like to see answered and I’m still curious about where the story will go from here, so there’s definitely a chance I will go on to read the next books.

Partial review found on Goodreads. Full review found on Write Before Your Eyes.

First of all, I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an ARC copy in exchange for an honest review. 

I have conflicted feelings about this book. There are many positive things about it, on the other end, though, there were things I'm not quite sure about. 
It was slow paced, firstly. It didn't quite lived up to the synopsis. I couldn't get hooked in the story for most of the book and I still can't understand why. Because it was slow? Because of the characters? I don't know honestly. 
Secondly, I felt confused about lots of things in this book. The story is written well, but sometimes I found myself stopping for a few minutes and repeating in my head what the heck happened before, listing the characters and what role they had and so on. I just felt something didn't quite add up. It's probably just me because I just couldn't get hooked in and I often found myself distracting while reading the book. 
However, I liked a lot the characters. I actually loved Naomi from the start and I loved how her story with Reynolds was developed.
So, I'm conflicted. I don't know right now if I really would read the sequel, but at the same time...I liked it. I really do and I would like to read the next book, but after reading this one...it was hard at one point. It was hard keep reading and I don't even know why. 
Anyway, I'll probably think about it and maybe I'll get the reason why I had problems reading this book. The thing is, the end was spectacular, I loved it and I just couldn't get enough, but the beginning and most of the book I just...I wasn't really so into it even though the story was quite good. 
Since I'm conflicted, I'll give 3,5 stars. However, I feel like this story deserves more and I recommend it really strongly, because it's very good.

I honestly am surprised by this book and not in a good way. First when I requested this book I did not know this was a re-release. I wish that had been clearer from NetGalley. This book never hooked me. The premise is interesting but I was bored as people are fighting for their lives. If somebody were to die I would just move on. I never connected to any of the characters. Plus there was all this instant love stuff going on. The best love story, which is still mediocre, is between Landon and Kat. Overall just a bland story.