Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes

Publication: January 1st, 2012

Publisher: Razorbill

Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Series: The Falling Kingdoms Series, Book One

Format: Paperback

Pages: 412 pages

Rating: 

Treacherous betrayals, secret alliances, unforeseen murders, and forbidden love—
The world of Mytica will hold you captive:

AURANOS – Privileged Princess Cleo is forced to confront violence for the first time in her life when a shocking murder sets her kingdom on a path to collapse.

LIMEROS – The king’s son, Magnus, must plan each footstep with shrewd, sharp guile if he is to earn his powerful father’s trust, while his sister, Lucia, discovers a terrifying secret about her heritage that will change everything.

PAELSIA – Rebellious Jonas lashes out against the forces of oppression that have kept his country cruelly impoverished—and finds himself the leader of a people’s revolution centuries in the making.

Witches, if found, are put to death, and Watchers, immortal beings who take the shape of hawks to visit the human world, have been almost entirely forgotten. A vicious power struggle quickly escalates to war, and these four young people collide against each other and the rise ofelementia, the magic that can topple kingdoms and crown a ruler in the same day.

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I really enjoyed Falling Kingdoms. I thought Rhodes world building was fantastic, the characters were well fleshed out, and the plot was definitely well done. I was interested from start to finish, there weren’t any parts that sagged for me. And while it took me a while to finish this book, it had nothing to do with the book itself. (I’ve been in a weird reading slump/mood lately and didn’t want anyone to think it was the books fault.)

This book follows four main characters. Cleo, the youngest princess of Auranos, Jonas, a rebel peasant from Paelsia, and Magnus and Lucia, the prince and princess of Limeros. I really loved all of the characters in this novel. Each character was well fleshed out and developed beautifully. Cleo at the beginning of the novel, was a little frustrating for me. She comes off as this rich, stuck up princess; but as the novel progresses you see some many other sides to her. I think her character development pleased me the most of all.

Jonas is a rebel from Paelsia, who at the beginning of the novel witnesses someone dear to him get murdered. And while I understood his anger and his hurt, I thought it was really immature of him to rush off for revenge. But again, I really enjoyed his character development throughout the story. By the end of the book, he was one of my favorite characters. I really, really enjoyed Magnus at the beginning of the novel. And while I still do, the development that his character makes throughout the story made me kind of sad. While I understand it and it’s purpose for the plot, and I doubt it will last, it was still kind of sad.

I think out of the four, Lucia developed the least. While there are huge things that are revealed about her and her past, I still think she changed the least. She came off to me as being fairly naive, and by the end of the book my thoughts on that hadn’t changed much. As for the side characters, I enjoyed most of them thoroughly and thought their roles were well done. I didn’t feel any of them were unnecessary. Theon was definitely my favorite of the side characters.

Overall, I really loved this book and can’t wait to continue on with the series. I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who likes young adult high fantasy. I’ve heard that fans of Game of Thrones and Throne of Glass would like this. Though, I personally have not read either of those series yet. I will warn you that getting attached to some characters may not be the wisest idea. Trust me.

*The image and synopsis were both taken from Goodreads. Clicking on the “add to goodreads” image above will take you to the Goodreads page for this book.*