Hidden (Dragondlands #1)
by Megg Jensen
Blurb:
The mystery enshrouding Hutton’s Bridge is as impenetrable as the fog that descended at its borders eighty years ago. Each year, three villagers enter the mist searching for answers. No one ever returns.Then a dragon falls from the sky to the town square, dead—the first glimpse of an outside world that has become nothing more than a fairy tale to Hutton’s Bridge. Except to Tressa.
Tressa grew up with Granna’s stories of the days before the fog fell. When Granna dies, leaving Tressa without any family, Tressa ventures into the fog herself, vowing to unravel the foul magic holding Hutton’s Bridge captive.
What she discovers beyond the fog endangers the lives of everyone she loves.
My Review:
I got a copy in exchange for a honest review
Basically I think the author has a nice idea, but for me it didn’t work out. The first half was so full with plot holes, bad character descisions and lack of world building it was almost funny. The second half was a whole lot better, but it was still way out there. It just didn’t make sense and it just felt like there wasn a thought out logic missing behind it. But the basic idea of the world, which we find out pretty late in the story was kinda nice.
The story is told in third person perspective from mostly two point of views. The third person perspective made it difficult to connect with the characters at first and their dumb descisions and the lack of insight in their emotions kept me from connecting with them. This book is a nice story, but I didn’t care about the characters. It was just a nice story and the rest was just a fill up. The characters actions don’t make sense most of the time and I sat there staring at the book a lot of time thinking “they did what?” A lot of the side characters are just there to fill up and they didn’t come alive. There are a few nice side characters like Leo and Jarret, those are two of my favourite characters in this book, but beside that there just weren’t any interesting characters.
The second half of the story was nicer than the first half, the pace picked up and while I still felt disconnected from the characters I did wanted to finish it and know what would happen. The ending wraps some thigns up, but there are lot of open threads left. There are some things that happen and then we never hear what happen with them again, although this could be due to the focus on only two characters, but I still would’ve liked to know what would happen with them at the end. It just wasn’t a satisfying ending and some things seemed to go easier then they should have. There where a lot of things that I won’t mention because those would be spoiling, but there are a lot of things that happen or descisions that just are weird or don’t make sense.
The world building was seriously lacking. It’s a bout a city in the fog and even that basic idea isn’t explained well enough to make the city feel alive. How big is the city, how many people live there? Why don’t they all stand up and march out there? How thick is the fog? How high is the fog? Many of these details where missing and this made the world lack sense. There where so many questions and even simple things where weird, like how could they make honey when I assume they should have less sunlight because there is a fog around their village.
To conclude: While the second half of this story was better than the first half, I just can’t rate it higher than 2 stars. There are so many gaps and plot holes and some things make so little sense, it’s almost funny. Also it just felt like a story that was being told, I couldn’t connect with the characters and the world building seriously lacked. There where some nice ideas, but it just didn’t work for me.
You can add Hidden to your to-read list on Goodreads
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