Isn't the UK cover of this book gorgeous? I really truly adore it and I just wanted to say that before I got into the actual review.
So The Waking Land is Callie Bate's debut novel. It's labelled as YA but I'm more inclined to see it as NA. There is a slightly steamy scene of the more adult variety in the book but as it's not that detailed, it can possibly get away with being YA. Maybe.
What I Liked
So the countries of Eren and Caeris are clearly based on Celtic myths and legends. There isn't anything specific but a lot of the place names being very Scottish or French and the idea of magic being within nature, you can see where the inspiration came from. Fortunately this very Celtic mythos and magic were very interesting. I liked the inclusion of nature and I liked the focus on someone with earth magic. I even liked that the non-earth magic was even based slightly within nature like being able to talk to people through the water.
As well as the natural magic, the language help makes the novel read like a traditional fantasy novel. Now I'm considering this a good thing because you don't get many novels labelled YA that read this way. It's nice seeing traditional fantasy with a heroine and I really did like that. Even if traditional fantasy isn't often something I'm a fan of.
The fact the book not only had a heroine but many other strong female characters was one of the best things about. Through these females you had a villain, you had warrior lady and you had a girl who never thought she would be Queen and you had a strong Mother trying to fight a rebellion in her own way. It was amazing to see all these women and get hints of their stories. It takes these women and the men a long time to convince Elanna to truly join in the rebellion though and that was another good thing. She'd been raised one way so she wouldn't suddenly flip to the other side just because of her family or a love interest and that was a breath of fresh air.
What I Didn't Like
All the good things aside, I wouldn't say I was the biggest fan of the book. The language was a little too flowery and descriptive for me. As nice as it was to hear about the world and magic, it just didn't jar well with me. It was because of the language I actually struggled to get into this book and I didn't really enjoy it until over halfway through. I kept going because I felt it had promise but at first I was sure this was only going to be two or three stars. Fortunately, the book did improve but I'm not sure I'll be re-reading this book anytime soon.
The main problem I had with this book was romance. It was a little too insta-romance with me, even when the heroine just thought someone else liked her after barely knowing her. And she'd known him longer than the actual love interest at that point. By the end of the book I still wasn't really a fan of the love interest but since the other characters were all so good, I can forgive Bates for how he was written.
Overall it was pretty well done for a standalone fantasy novel which I think it is. It's hard to contain so much story into one book and Bates has pulled together a wonderful fantasy tale that does that. Most of the issues I had were because I like my YA fantasy to feel a little more modern than this did. And that's not a problem. I still enjoyed it and there are people I would recommend it to.
4/5 Stars
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