Customer Reviews

The Eyes of a King: The Last Descendants #1

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book was a great read. It was written to target a younger audience so it was very quick to read. I do not suggest this book for the younger teens since it deals with topic such as war, politics, and suicide.

I thought that the story was written very well, it can be a bit tought at times to understand everything that is going on....I had to put the book down on a couple of occasion to go over everything in my head. It is hard to believe that this novel was written by a 14 year old. I am excited to read the next book. This is the first in a trilogy that is to be written.

I hope everyone enjoys it as much as I did.

Now there are some voices who herald 19 year old Catherine Banner as the next JK Rowling. I have to say, sorry, I disagree.

The narrator is 15 year old Leo North who lives in Malonia. To the Malonians, England is a fairytale country in another dimension, nobody knows for sure whether it's real or not. Malonia used to be a wonderful place to live in before the revolution when the king and queen were killed and the prince exiled to England. The country is now ruled by a type of military dictator who wages war against the neighbours.

In this setting we have Leo North who lives with his grandmother and 8 year old brother Stirling in a small flat. Both brothers attend military school. There used to be practitioners of magic everywhere and Leo seems to have some ability along those lines. His parents are not around anymore and we don't really know what has happened to them. We only know that his father wrote books about the good old times and these books are prohibited now - he had to leave. His grandfather Aldebaran was a great magician and he is also gone now. To cut a long story short, Leo finds an empty book in the snow and suddenly writing appears in the book. Every day or so there'll be a bit more. It turns out to be the story of what happened in England to the prince.

Altogether there are three different convoluted narratives and that was my main problem. It took me quite some time to figure out what on earth was actually going on. The three narratives are written in three different fonts to mark where one begins and the other one ends. That said, it took me until nearly the end of the book to understand what the first narrative, which actually starts the book, meant. It turns out that Leo tells his grandfather what has happened while the grandfather was in exile. We get that information about 10 pages from the end of the book.

Worse, however, was that the content of the book was boring, completely boring. There was not nearly enough movement in the story to keep me interested and I had to force myself to finish the book. The title is misleading - while 'the eyes of a king' are mentioned once or twice, there is no meaning attached to the phrase.

I would say that the first three quarters of the book could have been shortened considerably as the 'action' takes place in the last part. But even there, events that should have come across as exciting/traumatic are just lackluster. In addition, the author did not manage to make me care about the characters at all in one way or another. I did not mind when one of the characters died, I was not excited about the revolution - my only reaction can be described as 'yes - and - so what?'

i didn't discover this book online like most of the books that i've read. this one i picked it up in a local bookstore and bought it because it was on sale. i read the synopsis and thought, oh that sounds interesting and rather confusing, and then i read it, and then i thought it was actually better than i thought i would be. but i would've given it 3.5 stars if that's only possible because of the kind of dull feeling that never left the book. Nevertheless, to be fair, the book was very well-planned. it all seem kind of confusing and meaningless with the three different, interwoven story line going on at the same time, but in the end, they all wound up in the same place and you'd go like, oh yeah, that's what it is!! and then you'd be impressed by the author's ability to tell a story like this and not get confused herself :)

anyways, i think the plot was surprisingly complex and satisfying. the only problem that i thought was really distracting was that Banner spent a LOT of time writing about all the internal struggles that Leo is facing after Sterling died. so the story kind of dragged on without moving further for like a hundred pages or so, and for me, i was starting to get bored and there were several times that i had to put the book down to take a break from all the depressing and dark thoughts that have become constantly present in Leo's narrating. i mean, Banner did a great job showing the psychological aspects of it and an even better job creating a grim, lost, and sorrowful atmosphere that made me feel like even MY life in the real world seemed kind of hopeless like Leo's in the book. so yeah, i think that she could actually make the reader feel the same way the protagonist does is exceptional and deserve some credit for it, but at the same time, it can get extremely dull. however, it got better as Banner started to put more of the England story line in as Leo's woes kept multiplying to make things stay interesting enough. and then the plot became more and more complicated and made you feel like you have to know what's going to happen. so, basically, despite the 100-or-so pages of depression, the plot was very well planned and did create that kind of gripping feeling that i think is very important for fantasy books.

and then there's the characters. in the beginning, the characters, to me, just weren't all that likable because of different reasons and personal preferences. i know it's impossible that all the characters in every single book would be someone i like, but Sterling was simply too annoying for me to care about him that when he fell ill i didn't really feel bad for him, unfortunately. and then Leo is so childish in the beginning that i felt like i was reading a children's book. (or maybe the book is intended for children?) anyways, and the relationship between Leo and Maria seemed to be a bit unpolished. i don't know how, but it gave me a feeling that the author didn't know what's between them any better than i do. but, the good thing is, it got better as the story went on, and when it got to the end, i was glad to see that Leo's insights have grown much more mature and Banner has put forth many deep philosophical ideas. so yeah, the beginning was okay, but the end is quite stunning.

and one thing that made me give it a 4 instead of 3 when i was actually thinking of 3.5 was the age of the author. i'm sixteen, and i don't think i'll be writing a book anytime soon. i don't think i will have the thoroughness, intelligence, and determination that Catherine Banner showed when she was only 14. 14 years old and already writing a book? Unbelievable!! and i groan whenever i get a 500-word essay to write :) so yeah, i kind of admire her for what she accomplished at that age and really think that a work like this one is way more than impressive for a 14-year-old author. and i think i was being unfair to say that her characters are childish because she was only 14 at that time after all. and she did put many deep and insightful themes in it in the end. so yeah, good book, guarantee it will worth your time (only that you may want to take a break in between. it's not that kind of book that you finish in 1 day) and a great inspiration for young people!!

I read somewhere that Catherine Banner was slated to be the next J.K. Rowling. I'm sure whoever said it had good intentions but I'm left going, Um no. The book was exciting at first because it was different, but soon, the flaws began to stand out. The writing began to show a amateur-istic choppiness. Then, the plot just didn't make sense and by the end of it, I was left skimming the pages. I wish I had gotten more out of this because I think the idea was clever, but being dragged out over four hundred pages and squandered with raw writing? The idea starts to lose its luster.

The first thing is the writing. It was choppy. But that was all, because even choppiness can be brilliant (look at Maria V. Snyder). It lacked that critical personal element that makes the readers care about the characters. When tragedy hits halfway through the story, I'm left feeling sympathetic because it's sad by nature, but I had no emotional take in it. And Leo's reaction...It was stretched over the rest of the book--more than two hundred pages of the exact same thing over and over and over and over again. The repetition was just annoying after a while. Then, when the romance came in, I was just like..."Oh, you've got to be kidding me." There was simply no emotional depth. I just didn't get it.

The characters didn't make sense, either. I didn't like any of them. Not Leo, the main character. Not Grandmother. Not Maria. Maria! That girl had no place in this story.

That was my main issue, right there. Nothing really had a set place. I'm expecting everything to be so Its Own that it can't be left out without the story falling apart. If it isn't needed, then I don't want to read about it. Maria didn't hold a critical part, neither did her story, which took forever to get out and wasn't that surprising.

When I pick up a book--especially a fantasy--I'm expecting some type of "tightness" about the plot. Consider Cinda Williams Chima. Her fantasy books--The Demon King and The Exiled Queen--are thick. Over five hundred pages each. Over that considerable amount of length, she doesn't let anything go to waste. She uses everything. Meaning, something she mentions in the beginning of the story becomes significant later on. All her character's subplots are critical to the main plot. With Eyes of a King, there was no tightness. With the parallel world aspect, the two plots should have been so tightly bound that you shouldn't have been able to tell them apart. I feel that the separate stories barely affected each other.

Not only was the plot not tight, but it was cliché. The romance with Ryan, the story with Aldebaran...And the dialogue was poor. The lines of one character could come from any other character. There was no differentiating feature between them.

The writing could have stood for some serious polishing. There's a difference between describing the rain outside to just describe it versus using the rain as a backdrop and tool to get to the bigger picture. And I think putting it in first person was a mistake. The emotional distance between the reader and the characters was simply accentuated by the use of "I".

However, there were a few diamonds amongst all the roughness. For example:

"There was an atmosphere of disquiet in that strange town. Horses shifted and puffed steam in the damp evening air, and the men who walk around did not talk or smile. There were Malonian flags everywhere, grubby and damp, and they flapped like sickening birds against the buildings."

Excerpted from the hardcover, US edition, page 251.

Overall however, I was just not impressed. I was so excited to read this book because I'd had the name "Catherine Banner" down on my authors-to-investigate list for months and I finally found her book in the library. She apparently started this book when she was fourteen and she was showcased in a prestigious British gallery for inspiring young Britons. But I don't see the hype. I might pick up the next book because I know how an author's writing can change as they mature as a writer. (Again, see Cinda Williams Chima.)

-Amelia
The Authoress

The Eyes of a King is the debut of Catherine Banner, and though it definitely isn't the next Harry Potter it shows the true potential of the author. The story is slow from the beginning, and it never really picks up the pace, but to balance it out the writing really is stunning, at times I would forget how slow the story was and just get lost in the telling. The book Leo finds is also done quite well, the change in atmosphere from the steady decline of Leo's happiness being well needed and well placed. Essentially you get two different stories for the price of one, the story of Leo and his life within the dictatorship of Malonia, and the story of Aldebaran and Cassius.
As the story progresses Leo falls into a depression that lasts almost half the book, and, although it's beautifully written, after a hundred pages of the story being told through the eyes of Leo and his depression, you start to get really sick of it. The climax of the Cassius story felt very anticlimactic as well, and that was disappointing because it had good potential.
So the story is very slow and long, without much complexity, but the writing is extremely detailed and the author sets the mood with a subtle excellence. And despite the story not living up to what I anticipated, I enjoyed reading it, and look forward to it's sequel, as it is the first in a trilogy. This book definitely isn't everyone's cup of tea though, so if your not sure about it then probably best to check it out from the library.

I would give it three and a half stars if I could.

The story line sounded intriguing however, once the reading began it was clear that the writer although creative has yet to find a flow that will keep the reader immersed in the story. It was rough reading choppy and skipped around so that the line was lost time and time again. I can't imagine a younger reader keeping track and interest long enough to get to the end of the first book let alone the second. Perhaps next book the writer will start with smaller steps and move into larger ones as their writing skills improve with experience.

*This review contains spoilers.

First off, the given synopsis doesn't really do justice to what this book truly is, which is a very dark journey through life under an oppressive government during the midst of war, and the psychological trauma of losing a family member who is the representation of hope and light in a family. Banner does a wonderful job of revealing the content throughout the novel, so as not to give the whole thing away immediately. However, it continues to move toward a very dark direction, and although I found myself wanting to continue reading in order to finish the story, personally, it became less enjoyable the further along I got in the book.

That's not to say, certainly, that I don't recommend this read, because I do, it's just that I would definitely consider this more on the literary side of the fantasy fiction spectrum. If you're looking for a fun, lighthearted fireside fantasy, this isn't the book for you. However, if you're looking for a well-written book with more of a literary bent that explores a world of magic and kingdom era war and weaponry in a more realistic way, then you will definitely enjoy this book.

-Lindsey Miller, [...].

On a cold June evening, 15-year-old Leo North discovers a book lying on a snow-covered street. When he picks it up, he immediately senses its powerful aura. Although hesitant, he decides to take it home with him. The next morning, he is surprised to see writing on a few of the book's previously blank pages. The pages contain stories, including one about the young prince Cassius the III.

Fifteen years ago, the great Aldebaran wrote a prophecy that the young king and queen of Malonia would die, but that their son, the young prince, would live to reign over Malonia. Five years later, however, the prophecy seemed to come true, when the young Donahne royals were murdered during a hostile coup led by Lucien Kalitz. Rumors swirled that the young prince had survived and possibly had been exiled to the fabled England (the same place where Aldebaran was thought to have disappeared to years earlier). It seemed as though the wealth and good fortune of Malonia would be restored once again. As years went by, however, hope ebbed away and the supposed prophecy was reduced to a mere fairy tale.

Leo doesn't know whether or not to believe the story, but he does know that to have a book relating to the prophecy is dangerous. His father, Harold North, was an acclaimed writer when he wrote about the royal family and Aldebaran's prophecy in his book THE GOLDEN REIGN. It was banned shortly after it was published, and Leo's parents were forced to flee the country, leaving behind Leo and his younger brother Stirling to be cared for by their grandmother Margaret.

The relationship between the brothers is close, despite their differences, age or otherwise. Young Stirling hopes to be a priest someday and often likes to discuss what he learned in church or their father's books. Leo, on the other hand, has turned away from the church and doesn't care for school. The brothers attend one of the government-run military schools, which they each find difficult to learn from, especially when dealing with the abusive Sergeant Markey, who seems to single out the two boys. Following in their father's footsteps has also been greatly discouraged, a point that has made it difficult for Leo and his grandmother to get along.

Despite Leo's increasing frustration about his life and limited future, one bright development is the boys' friendship with Maria, also 15, who moved into their apartment complex with her infant son Anselm and her mother. Meanwhile, stories continue to appear in the book, seeming to confirm Leo's suspicions that the book is potent with magic, as they give some answers and more questions concerning (and intertwining) the histories of Malonia and Leo's own family.

However, when a tragic turn of events develops, Leo is set on a troubled path that will have him questioning the line between fantasy and reality.

With a mature, eloquent style rarely seen in a young adult author, Catherine Banner weaves an immensely gritty yet heartfelt saga about the choices that people are given, the decisions they make, and the dreams they cling to in the midst of challenging realities. THE EYES OF A KING is the first book in a projected trilogy that Banner began writing when she was just 14 years old. Based on this debut effort, her future as a writer is looking bright indeed.

--- Reviewed by Sarah Sawtelle

i read about it in Scholastic Magazine. I am a teacher and I bought it for my 13 year old. She liked it.

Catherine Banner's THE EYES OF A KING tells of Leo, who has spent five years remembering his life, from military school and his oppressive family life to his blossoming magical powers. When he finds himself on a very different path because of this magic, he writes an entirely different saga in this fantasy for middle to high school students.