Book Review: The Branding by Micaela Wendell

The Branding by Micaela Wendell

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
Pages: 149
Acquired: March 2011
Book of Your Shelf? No
Why I have it: ERC
Series: No

A young elf girl, Morwen, disobeys the rules and explores the forest around her village. Now, the forest is forbidden because elves of all ages have been disappearing in it. Morwen's wandering brings a little good and quite a bit of bad. The good thing is that she meets a human ranger that begins to teach her how to become a warrior (something that is strictly forbidden for females to learn). The bad thing is that her little sister follows her and disappears.

Morwen decides to rescue her sister and ends up under a curse, the slave of a truly evil being. She only has a short time to find a way to remove the curse before it takes over her very soul.

The action in the story is very quick and erratic. It tends to jump from one scene to another with very little build up. While this keeps the story exciting, it also makes it hard to follow one leap to the next, and to develop the characters. The characters do change and grow, but it occurs in a very jarring way. Relationships develop and fall apart without any reason leading up to it.

2/5