The Shadow of What Was Lost by James Islington

It has been twenty years since the god-like Augurs were overthrown and killed. Now, those who once served them the Gifted are spared only because they have accepted the rebellion's Four Tenets, vastly limiting their own powers. As a young Gifted, Davian suffers the consequences of a war lost before he was even born. He and his friends are despised beyond their school walls for the magical power they wield: a power that Davian, despite his best efforts, cannot seem to control. Worse, with his final test approaching and the consequences of failure severe, time to overcome his struggles is fast running out. But when Davian discovers he wields the forbidden power of the Augurs, he unwittingly sets in motion a chain of events that will change his life and shake the entire world.

4.5 stars! This was so good. The blurb telling Sanderson fans will like this was not wrong.
I liked sooo many of the characters! There was a lot of development. This is mostly plot driven but all the characters are so compelling.
Let my boy Caeden have some peace

Part of me wanted to devour this book because it was so good I didn't want to stop reading. But I wanted to savor the experience and just get into the world, and it was totally worth it! I love this book, it's one of my favorites of this year. I have high hopes for the second!

If you're a fan of Brandon Sanderson, you'll probably like this book. It has foreshadowing, a large cast of beloved characters, tons of plot twists and a great plot.

People are comparing this to Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time) and Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn) and this might as well be the case. I didn't like those books, and this one follows the very same format.

For me this style of writing is a thorn in the side of fantasy. It starts with an exciting prologue completely unrelated to the plot, some obscure dialogue and a lithany of weird sounding names. Then it dials down from 100 to 0 and the real book begins, and the plot is very slowly presented, because the author is busy explaining the many characters, places, magic system, etc.

These aspects are even that strong in this book, but the book itself isn't that good to begin with. The story really starts, ignoring that useless prologue, depicting the very boring life of the protagonist, who is of course a student in a school of magic, and hist best friend Sam Wyr, and they journey to Mount Doom a rebel camp for special wizards.

In the way they are hunted by the Black Riders cleverly named Hunters because magic is forbidden and being a magic user is punishable by death in some places of the kingdom.

The book is not overtly bad, just uninteresting. There is a small twist which might be cool latter, the Shadow, magic users stripped of their magic powers. Magic users are bellow regular humans in the food chain, and Shadows are even lower. They have no right and absolutely no power whatsoever.

This begs to the dramatic side too much for me, but again, the book isn't even that good for me to complain about that.

Read 4:05 / 25:29 16%