Monday, October 13, 2014

Lark Rising by Sandra Waugh

Lark Rising
by Sandra Waugh
Read: September 29 - October 7, 2014
Published: September 23, 2014 by Random House Books for Young Readers
Source: Hardback from publisher (THANK YOU, RH BYR!)
Tags: YA, Fantasy, 

Series: Guardians of Tarnec
Find: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N | The Book Depository 


Book description: Full of romance and nature magic, this debut fantasy is perfect for fans of Shannon Hale, Juliet Marillier, and Kristin Cashore.
 
Lark has foreseen two things—she will fall for a young man with sage green eyes,and he will kill her.
 
Sixteen-year-old Lark Carew is happiest close to home, tending her garden and gathering herbs for medicines. But when her Sight warns her that monsters called Troths will soon invade her village, Lark is summoned on a journey to seek help from the legendary Riders of Tarnec. Little does she suspect that one of the Riders, Gharain, is the very man who has haunted her visions. Or that the people of Tarnec have called her there for another reason: Lark is the Guardian of Life, the first of four Guardians who must awaken their powers to recover four stolen amulets. Together, the amulets—Life, Death, Dark, and Light—keep the world in Balance. To take back the Life amulet, Lark will have to discover her true inner strength and give in to a love that she swears will be her downfall.

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Reviewing this book is a very sad experience for me. You see, I was so excited for Lark Rising when I first heard about it, and I really wanted to like it. I tried hard to make that happen, but this heroine kept getting in my way. 

My biggest struggle in this book was the narrator Lark herself. I had trouble understanding her character and just liking her in general. I felt like we would make some progress, and then she'd do something new that irritated me. It's hard to even describe why that was, because in many ways she acted like the typical heroine. But Lark had this underlying sense of self-doubt and feelings of unworthiness that permeated her character in a very negative way. Plus on top of that she was stubborn. It was a bad combination and just didn't connect well for me at all.  

The romance in this book started off a little rocky, but I don't mind the antagonistic beginnings, and I sympathized with Gharain's enormous guilt over his past decisions. I was hopeful that the love story would be a strong aspect of this story, until Lark's immaturity and stupidity got involved and it became one of the more frustrating and unbelievable elements. Mostly in terms of Lark's misguided beliefs. The romance has an air of inevitability about it, and I didn't mind the instant attraction elements here, but some of the obstacles didn't work for me. 

I've put more information about my difficulty with the romance under the show/hide spoiler tag.



The story itself started off pretty slowly, but overall the plot was fine. Though, honestly, I was so distracted by Lark that I don't feel like I can analyze it properly. The fantasy world was interesting and I liked the idea of Balance as a major theme. I also liked Twig's role; he was a character that stood out to me. However, because of the way Lark acted, I didn't like this book more and I couldn't believe the ending she's given in the story. It just didn't ring true to me, or feel well deserved at all. 

I was so excited about this new series before I read Lark Rising: I love fantasy, it was blurbed by Juliet Marillier, and the series is supposed to be four books with four heroines and no love triangles. But now I'm super bummed. I'm not completely ruling out reading the next installment, especially if the heroine reads differently, but my expectations have dropped tremendously. 


Love Triangle Factor: None 
Cliffhanger Scale: Low. This story is wrapped, but some indication of where the next is headed, especially the main heroine and hero. 


6 comments:

  1. I agree Lauren, I struggled with Lark as well. I really wanted to like her when she rallied and decided she would go and try and find the riders, but she continually frustrated me after that point. I don't need my heroines to all be badasses, Lord knows I'm not, but I wanted something more from her for sure. Confidence maybe? I did like the overall premise, and am hoping maybe some of the other Guardians will work better for me!

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  2. Aw, amazing review Lauren. <3 I'm still kind of happy that you didn't like this book, lol (A) As I had huge issues with it too. Sigh. And I so agree with the things that bothered you. They bothered me too. Sigh. This book just could have been all kinds of amazing. Still a bit sad that it wasn't. But happy we both disliked it, hih :) Thank you for sharing sweetie. <3

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  3. Well this makes me feel less bad about not getting to this one yet even though I was also SUPER excited about it when I first saw it (it's the tree cover prettiness, I'm a sucker for "life" magic, ha). I might still give it a try since I tend to not care much about character dynamics if I like the magic and world, and the structure of the series sounds cool, gah, conflicted! Thanks for the review!

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  4. I actually liked the book and Lark didn't bother me the way she bothered you. I don't know why because I didn't actually disagree with anything you wrote. I was bothered by the insta-love because it really was insta-love even though he acted like he hated her. But yes, the visions were annoying, but obviously a huge part of the story, but the fact that they obviously could be misinterpreted made the one vision so dumb and obviously just a plot device to keep the couple apart. I guess it's that or a love triangle! :) I love fantasy so I'm sure I'll read the next ones and since the main character is so different from Lark, you may end up really liking it. I do love the world the author has created. I just finished Mistborn, by the way, which is a fantastic fantasy. If you haven't read it, I recommend it. I'm about the start the second book…just love binge reading!! ~Pam

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  5. I have not heard of this one but I will steer clear - I've been wanting to read some great fantasy again soon. I'm sad that this one wasn't a win for you, Lauren!

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  6. We've talked about this book quite a bit already, and I totally understand your thoughts. Actually, the more we talked, the more I got annoyed too! Ha. I agree though - it's immature and ridiculous for Lark to think that Gharain will just all of a sudden want her cousin, and that her cousin will love him back even though Lark loves him. Doesn't make much sense. But otherwise I thought the romance was sweet, and I liked the story. Hopefully the next one will work better for you!

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