children of the Gods by Monica Millard
For as long as seventeen-year-old Reka Cushing can remember, she has watched her friends and her neighbors be stolen, their bodies used as hosts for the Halorans; an alien race that has come to earth posing as gods. For just as long, Reka has lived in fear of drawing the eye of a Haloran, keeping her head down, hoping not to be caught in their sights.
The only time she has ever been bold, tried to get what she wanted, a god, one more powerful, more dangerous than all others is watching.
This book seems like such a cool idea! I picked it up because of the premise. I actually enjoyed the story but I also had some issues with it. First I will talk about the things that worked for me.
Children of the Gods has some really good characters! Reka is strong and compassionate. I appreciated the fact that she was trying to be a good person. The same goes for Jaxson. He really was a good person, and I really started to like him. I love that Reka is strong enough to try and fight off the alien inside of her but I wish I would have gotten to know her personality as herself a little first before I saw her thrust into this life. That way, I would have been able to tell if she stayed the same or if there were changes. As the story was told, I really only got to know Reka as “the chosen”. And I liked who she was, I hope that was who she was before too.
One of the things I had an issue with was the pacing of the novel. It felt a bit choppy in parts and sometimes was not explained fully. I caught myself re-reading more than one part because I was really confused. Things came out of nowhere and kind of surprised me and threw me off balance. If you like the type of book that just keeps throwing curve balls at you, then you might really enjoy Children of the Gods. The curve balls just didn’t always seem to fit within the story.
Reka seems like such a strong girl to me that I was a little shocked that she started to like Jaxson almost immediately. She starts out hating him and then boom, she is all about him. I mean, I do get it- Jaxson was really nice and clearly loved her so much, but it just seemed a little rushed to me.
The last issue I had with this book was the ending. Now maybe this was just because I was enjoying the story and it went to a place where I totally didn’t want to see it go. The ending made me sad. But also, this book is called a chosen novel, which implies that there will be more than one of them. The way the book ended totally made me think that it would be a standalone novel. So i’m not really sure if there will be another book or not. Everything kind of wrapped up,so I would be really interested to see what the story would be about.
Overall, the premise behind Children of the Gods is really cool. I enjoyed the main storyline. I just had some problems with the execution of it. The writing is good and the characters are good, but the book is choppy and rushed in sections and then kind of just throws you off a cliff with the ending. I wish this book could have been a bit more than it was, but I still liked reading it.
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| 2.5/5 gavels |
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I know writing negative reviews is the hardest. You did a good job balancing it out. Well the nudging might be sad and such but hey at least it wasn’t a cliffhanger!
Bummer this didn’t work for you, and I think you were fair and I really understood what you did and didn’t like.
I agree with Heidi – negative reviews ARE hard. You did really well though making it constructive and pointing out the things you did like. I always try to balance it out myself, but I still feel it’s so harsh.
Maybe the next one will be better…