Court of Fives

Aside from reading a lot of books, I also listen to a lot of audio books. Listening to books can be tricky for two reasons:

1. If the narrator is terrible, the book is terrible. Sometimes, I know the book is probably fantastic,  but I end up disliking it because I couldn't listen to the narrator. I've gotten to the point where I know when this is happening, so I just stop listening and just wait until I get the chance to read a book.

2. If the book isn't fast paced enough, I find myself zoning out and losing track of the story. I'll miss whole parts without even realizing it. So I make sure to pick books that are fairly easy to listen to. Fortunately, that is the case for most YA (my favorite!).

I love listening to books because I can do it while I'm driving, cooking, cleaning--almost anything. I can get an extra book read (and YES, it does count as reading) that I normally wouldn't be able to.

So I listened to Court of Fives by Kate Elliot. She usually writes adult Sci-fi/ Fantasy, and I've never read her adult work. I needed to read Court of Fives because I received a free ARC for book two forever ago.

So Court of Fives was...ok. It was a good idea, but I feel like nothing about it was well-developed.

The setting was a class divided fantasy world of Patrons and Commoners-no elaboration necessary. Jessamyn's father is a Patron soldier and her mother is a commoner. The two could never marry because of their country's laws, but they were completely devoted to each other. You know, until a story needed to have a conflict, at which time that devotion was conveniently forgotten. Jessamyn, our main character, behaves in public and rebels in private. She wants to run the fives, a challenging obstacle course where the winners receive fame and fortune.  The problem is, she's not supposed to be doing it. So even though she knows she can win, she has to pretend not to so that no one can find out who she is.

Ultimately, I had a few problems with this book. First, the characterization just wasn't very strong. I would think I had a handle on who a character was, and then they would act outside their character. This happened regularly throughout the book and not in a good way. It wasn't like the characters were suddenly bad and became good. They did things that didn't make sense to advance the story. It just wasn't well constructed. I don't know how to really put it into words, but the characters changed for the story's sake rather than advancing the story on their own. It felt fake. Does that make sense?

Another thing that bothered me was the sudden romance that developed between Jess and Cal, a high born Patron who also runs the fives. For much of the book, they were just helpful to each other, and then BAM, they're lovers! Not a big fan of that...

Overall, I gave it a 3 on goodreads. I'm going to read book two, The Poisoned Blade, because I have it and book one wasn't the worst thing ever. But I'm hoping Elliot was able to work out some of the kinks of the first book.