Access Aspect Of Winter (Seasons Rising, #1) Drafted By Tom Early Formatted As Hardcover

a pretty picky reader overall,
It sometimes takes a little while for a book to properly grab my attention, and oftentimes I give up halfway through because what Im reading just isnt engaging enough.
Aspect of Winter was no exception to this in the beginning, I had a tough time keeping the book in my hands, because while I certainly liked the characters enough, the start is a little slow, and it was hard to see where the story was going.
But shortly after the Samhain Festival, I was suddenly sucked into both the plot and the character development, and afterwards, I honestly couldnt put it down.


Its wonderfully refreshing to have a cast of characters with such diverse personalities and sexualities/identities, The reasons I picked up Aspect in the first place were largely because of the fact that the

main trio arent your typical heterosexual heros/heroines, and the story doesnt revolve around sex and romance like so many YA novels out there.
Fay as a protagonist is fantastic hes sensitive, and not the loudest personality in the group by far that title is obviously Sams, but to me, it makes him that much more genuine and real.
Heres a kid who isnt all that popular, who isnt great at everything he does, who is soft spoken, a lot sarcastic, and a little chilly til you get to know him properly.
Hes incredibly relatable, and there were so many times where I found myself smiling down at the pages during a spell of bickering between him and Sam, or a tender moment with Tyler.


Aspect ended with a twist, and Im very, very excited to see what will happen in the sequel, Overall, Id definitely recommend this book to anyone who has a love of fantasy, queer characters, and engaging, wellwritten stories, Cant wait for more!
Okay, something is wrong with that story plot, The start was pulling, but it soon became strange, I don't know what but something is bothering me with everything, Also, how can I like the story plot if I don't like some of the characters inside the story plot like Sam, Not bad, but not great either, I was uncomfortable from the outset with the pervasive influence of Harry Potter, from the dangerous training in a mysterious school of magic where teachers are unconcerned with the security of their pupils to the ensemble cast of friends, the fuzzy plotting and the hero full of secrets brimming beneath the surface.
The book ought either to have been advertized as a ripoff or been modified enough to stand on its own, The main characters hesitate between garishness the tomboy Sam whose violence fed by her seemingly supreme mastery of martial arts is so much unchecked by mere decency that she never comes alive as a true person, just a prop and blankness Fay, the feeble hero, next to whose personality Harry Potter seems a prodigy of complexity like Iago his love interest Tyler the secondary cast shines by its remarkable lack of presence do not expect the kind of teachers who make Hogwarts such a fun place to read about ! those few there are in "Aspect of Winter" could have been invisible ghosts, for what little characterization they are given and their impact on the story.
Dialogues are uniformly colorless, the plentiful descriptions, especially of magical battles, seldom eschew the pitfalls of exaggeration sometimes we feel as if in a cheap version of the arc of Dragon Ball in which young Goku must defeat the warriors of Baba the witch inside her palace and purple prose too much epithets !, what passes off for a love story plays second fiddle to the magical intrigue, and the thirdrate plot stills a lot.
Worse yet the book declines to provide any closure beyond the vaguest of HFNs as no sequel seems to be forthcoming, little interest attaches to this half or thirdastory.
I really enjoyed this. It's easy to make comparisons to the Harry Potter series or Rick Riordan's novels, but the wellrealised characters are a little older and dealing with problems like sexuality, relationships and university entrance as well as magic.
The magical and the mundane are both handled well and the story zips along at an exciting pace, I thought that this was an extremely impressive debut from a young writer and I am looking forward to reading more of his work.
I thought this sounded cool because it's about magic queer kids applying to a magical university, This sounds awesome and it's right up my alley, It didn't work for me on so many levels, unfortunately, and I didn't finish it, The plot and pacing is all over the place and very uneven, The writing is clunky and so is the dialogue, These kids are a bit on TSTL side, and while Fay is kind of boring and uninteresting, I found Sam, Fay's best friend, to be an annoying, angry, violent bully who harrasses her best friend a lot is is generally rude to everyone.
I think she's meant to be a staunch badass who takes no shit, but instead she's obnoxious and her mean behaviour is cringeworthy and unpleasant.
The university is extremely dodgy and dangerous their admissions rep attacks the kids quite violently before introducing himself and I don't understand why any sensible person would want to attend.
There's more, but basically, this book didn't work for me, I love YA fantasy, but not this one, A fantastic pun intended debut from a unique new voice in YA, In this book, ancient folklore and mythology from around the world are brought to life in new and compelling ways, and often with grave consequences for our three teenage protagonists.
If you think college applications are tough, try applying to a magical university whose admission process consists of a series of gruelling and dangerous magical trials.
Early takes the genre and its readers seriouslythis is YA that doesnt pull punches, in which there is no obvious good and evil because most characters realistically fall in the grey areas of the moral spectrum, and with a gutpunch ending that left me desperate to start the next book.
At the same time, the book avoids YAs cliched gotos for conflict generation: youll find no ridiculous love triangles here! Fey, Sam and Tyler each have hardships to overcome, but their friendship is unshakable, and they tackle the obstacles thrown in their path together often with delightful ruthlessness.


Bonus: a queer romance between protagonists that is sweet and heartwarming and not incessantly angstridden :/: Gay paranormal MC!!!!!! FY!!! I received this book from Netgalley and Harmony Ink Press in exchange for an honest review.
This did not affect my review opinion in any way, Any quotes listed are from an uncorrected proof and are subject to change before publication,
To be honest, this book had me conflicted, The summary made it sound so much like an older version of Harry Potter, but I was happy to discover that that wasn't true.
Aspect of Winter took what we think of as a widelyused plot and made it seem new again, The only similarity with the Harry Potter series was that of a magical school, but that was it,
Fay, Sam, and Tyler were interestingish characters, I can't say I felt too strongly with them, but Fay and Tyler were a cute couple, and Sam's persona of the strong one if a bit cheesy was okay.
They just didn't resonate with me,
To go with that, neither did the writing, really, There were some funny parts "'Shut up,' I muttered, 'I have pale skin and a low tolerance for flattery, '" but other than that, it seemed kind of bland, It was enjoyable though! I just wouldn't say it's my favorite,
The powers in the story were quite interesting it seemed like they were supposed to be built on Gaelic tales Fay was basically sciencey, haslimits Elsa, and Sam's incantations were pretty cool.
Tyler being Fay's familiar made me frown especially since there was no later explanation, It seemed like it was stuck in as "Oh, Fay's special" and left it like that, But the other powers were pretty awesome too! Aria's wings and weather control was intriguing as well,
All in all, an enjoyable read, but not the greatest ever, .