Review: Granted (Granted #1)

by Kendra Thomas

Rating: ⭐2.5/5⭐

Sabeara Aigoviel, princess of Aveladon, wants nothing more than for her heart to glow. The Stone-Hearted power that is received at the age of eighteen is her ultimate wish. With a grim curse looming over the realm and a neighboring kingdoms conspiring plans, contentions arise. Moments of danger summon evil forces, sending Sabeara into a whirlwind of adventure, captivity, and even love.

Rescued by a handsome stranger in a brown cloak, they navigate the kingdoms to bring her safely home. When her rescuer arrives betrothed to her beloved older sister weeks later, it is all she can do to erase their memories. Will Sabeara be able to defeat the curse on the Stone-Hearted race? And will she be able to forget the memories of her epic ventures with her cloaked rescuer?

I was lured and ensnared by a pretty cover once again. Will I ever learn? Probably not. Pretty covers are my own personal kryptonite. Seems I’m forever fated to be duped by them.

I had such high hopes for this book. I went in with every intention of loving it, but my expectations were quite thoroughly crushed.

Allow me to regale you with my tale of woe.

First of all Sabeara. I just didn’t like her. She came across as very entitled, immature and spoiled. A brat, basically. In the beginning I’d been so convinced that maybe she’d started out that annoying because a huge character growth arc was on the horizon, but to my profound disappointment she didn’t grow up at all. She was just stagnant in her poor little rich girl persona.

The other main character, Mid, the love interest, I didn’t quite like either. I couldn’t get a sense of him aside from being arrogant and self-confident. Both Sabeara and Mid were just forgettable characters. And as for the rest of this book’s cast, it was more of the same. I think the one I liked the most was Oli, Sabeara’s guardian, but his character was also underdeveloped. None of them stood out to me or had any memorable qualities. They were all very one-dimensional. And very emotional—someone was always tearing up.

I had my issues with the plot, pacing and writing, too.

I think one more editing round would have done the book good. There were commas missing, misspelled words (ice sickles; using too instead of to, for example), and other snags like dialogues from different characters taking place within the same paragraph.

The pacing I felt was inconsistent, especially when it came to the development of the romantic relationship between the lead characters. It was messy and rushed ~~and something that seemed like it had to be done for the sole purpose of it being already set up by the time the betrothal revelation came around~~. I wish more time had been given for Sabeara and Mid to naturally and organically fall in love, maybe then I would have found there to be at least some chemistry between them. As things were, the spark between them was completely missing as far as I’m concerned.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the writing either. It was reminiscent of Sarah J Maas’ style, but with the use of adjectives taken to the extreme. There were so many of them—too many for my taste. The end result was that everything was so thoroughly explicated and painstakingly described that at times I just grew weary. Things were either overly explained or not at all. If you’ve already shown us, there’s no need to tell us, too. Trust in your readers. If you’ve properly set things up, we’ll have no problem picking up what’s going on, without it needing it to be spelled out for us (bonus points for the addition of unusual words, though. I learned a couple of new ones). I didn’t think the dialogues were realistic or believable, either. The character interactions were very awkward and unnatural at times.

The plot was fine, except very little of it was actually developed. We don’t know where the Stone-Hearted power comes from (the tree?🤷‍♀️), or why it was called that. It wasn’t clear whether different powers were tied to different colors, or if the colors merely related to the strength of the magic. Are specific colors or powers hereditary? It was hard to appreciate the scope of how detrimental the curse could be when I didn’t really understand the magic system. Most of the book was world building and relationship drama and very few strides were made in unraveling this curse, but I was still left with more questions than answers. I also don’t know that the betrothal mess meshed well with the mystery/adventure aspect of the story. At times I felt I was reading a historical book instead of a fantasy.

Overall, this book missed the mark for me, and that’s why I’m giving it a 2.5 rating. But I’ll concede that maybe I simply wasn’t in the right mood to enjoy it. I also believe a younger audience may find it much more compelling than I did. You never know whether you’ll love or hate a book unless you take the chance and read it.

**I received an e-copy of this book from the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Independent Book Publishers Association**