The Kingdoms And The Elves Of The Reaches (Reader's Choice Edition, Keeper Martin's Tales Book 1) Book

My review here.

Or read it here:

The Kingdoms and the Elves of the Reaches has been compared to JRR Tolkien and for good reason, they both contain magic, elves. and evil newly awakened. There are also words, sentences, paragraphs, and chapters in both books. So, I can completely understand why you would want to draw comparisons to both novels; however, once you get past those details the comparison quickly falls apart. We have three main characters: the young princess, an elf who believes duty comes before dishonor, and a young boy with magical powers. Each one of these characters have the emotional range of a sofa pillow and are as three dimensional as a sheet of paper. The book is targeted for young adults but I can not see anyone of any age finding this novel entertaining. Painting by numbers has more mystery and intrigue than what I found in this book. The characters are dreadful and most of that is due to the dialogue.

There are many passages in The Kingdoms and of the Elves of Reach that had me dumbfounded. I literally found myself shaking my head and re-reading portions of the book and then laughing out loud at some of the alliterations and illusions Stanek attempted to convey to the readers. I usually refrain from using book quotes in my reviews, but in this case I will make an exception.

"Always more reminders of the things she should or should not do'her proper place, always her proper place. She knew all about the proper things, the proper mannerisms, the proper greetings, her proper duties, her proper place. She had even been taught, though only recently, the proper things to do to invite a man's attention. She was to begin courting. But why? "

Or this winning prose:

"But his search was in vain because he truly was alone. There was no one else with him."

And the best for last:

"The robed figure lowered his hood to reveal childlike features riddled with lines that spoke of ages past and of hardship."

These are just a few of my favorites from a book riddled with absurd statements. It is as if he wrote the book and then went back to it with the express purpose of adding as many words that he knew from the thesaurus and placed them sporadically within the text. The book is full of awkward sentences and repetitive descriptions. It helped make it a little more tolerable to read but only from a comical standpoint.

At the heart of The Kingdoms and the Elves of the Reaches are three people questing to defeat an unspeakable evil that is returning to the world. Sure Tolkien did it, but so have many other authors, all of which did it much better than Mr. Stanek. The book, while not hard to read, suffers from a very unimaginative individual.

I really tried to read this novel with an open mind and do my best to avoid the negative reactions from other reviewers and disappointed consumers but after finishing this dreadful debacle of a book, I found myself in the exact same spot as others. I have to warn you to stay away from The Kingdoms and the Elves of the Reaches and any other book written by Robert Stanek. My recommendation is to avoid this at all costs unless death is the only other option, although death may be the better option.

Plot 3
Characters 2
Style 1

Overall 1/10*


*Negative numbers are unfortunately not an option.