Stephanie Flores

Although it's not mentioned in the description, this book is part 1 of Vendrix series; that IDK consists of how many books. I couldn't find that information anywhere.

I believe the main characters in the book had a good character development - Zendra, Valen, and even Marnivus.
I like the author's writing. The intense moments were intense and fighting scenes were well written.
However, I feel the story was a bit off.

First off, the whole decision of going through the Path of Fatality didn't feel justified. There wasn't enough build-up for that.
Marnivus killed Zendra's parents and he killed Shaleen. But neither of them had any character development at all. So, even though their deaths were all tragic, they were still pretty forgettable. Especially, with all the slice-of-life elements present in the book.
It's as if the characters were introduced just to kill them. I did not feel connected to them. And hence, their deaths did not affect me. If only there was a happy memory of her parents or Shaleen that could break our hearts and implant in our minds why going through the Path of Fatality and killing Marnivus was so important.

Also, the Path of Fatality didn't feel as fatal as it sounds. I expected the journey through the path to be something like that in Lord of the Rings, but this was much much easier. Something like Digimon - You wander around with your friends in an alien world with exotic animals and battle monsters every now and then. I mean, yeah, the fight scenes are well written and intense. But the time between the fight scenes, i.e. the Path itself, feels like they're having a regular stroll through the woods.

Thirdly, Marnivus didn't feel villainous enough. Killing Zendra's parents and Shaleen are the only brutal things he did in the book and neither of them had much impact on me due to their lack of character build-up. Plus, the fact that the party practically cakewalk his dreaded Path of Fatality.
And we're already made to sympathize with him due to his troubled past. That intended element of internal struggle in Zendra's mind, towards Marnivus by making us sympathize with him, would've only been successful if we were made to hate him in the first place.

TL;DR: It was a good read. But, I believe it had a lot more potential.
It felt as if a lot of focus was put on the turmoils of a demon-harboring girl and the overall story took a hit.… (altro)