The Valiant

When I finished this book, my first thought was: Well, I am glad this was a book I got from the library.

When I first started this book, I had high hopes for it. It looked interesting, when I first spotted it on a table at my local Barnes and Noble, making me think it was going to be something like a female version of the film Gladiator starring Russell Crowe. And it was...for some part of the novel

You see, while this novel has an interesting premise, with female gladiators set in ancient Rome, and features a strong female lead that people can get into if they really try, I found nothing else interesting to make me want to suggest this novel to anyone. It tries to be a more historically accurate novel when compared to books like An Ember in the Ashes series by Sabah Tahir, but those characters and scenes pale in comparison to this text. This is due to two major reasons: the writing style, and the development.

One of the most glaring problems with this text is the writing style. It has basic writing mistake that many authors make when writing for the YA market: “if I use words of a 10th grade vocabulary, maybe no one will notice that I lack anything substantial.” Much of the writing in this novel tends to consist of writing using a vocabulary that is on par with it's market, but that lacks any descriptive prose. At no point do we get a chance to slow down and explore the unique setting of the world we are in. Often, this novel breezes by in quick succession from one scene to the next, never pausing to take a breath.

This normally would not be much of a problem, except that it bleeds into another section: the lack of development. Because this novel moves so fast, we never really learn anything about Fallon or the world she lives in, nor the side characters she meets. I know that we are supposed to get her to becoming a gladiator, but if the author was going to have her brood over her lost love and home, I could have stood more descriptions of it, other than the barest of details. Often, for the first few chapters, we are told about the relationship between characters, rather than actually shown it through meaningful interactions, so that when Fallon gets taken into slavery, I don't really care about her missing home. We never really make a connection between her boy back home, nor her father. We also never really understand her culture, other than that they are warriors and...that is really it. Many of these characters, I felt, were largely interchangeable with one another. The dialogue was never truly unique, and, half the time, I forgot what they all looked like. Consequently the romance that is here is rushed, and felt like it needed to be in here because it is a YA trope, and the publisher demanded it.

Then there are other things that annoy me, like how the book was marketed. In my edition, it says that this was a nice blending of historical fiction and fantasy. I'm sorry, but there was not a single mention of fantasy to be found anywhere. The only mentions of anything close to it was the mention of the goddess that Fallon worships, and that is more theology than anything else. Another thing that annoyed me was how Sarah J Mass was dragged into this by saying that fans of her books would like this series. Look, I may not have been a fan of her Throne of Glass series, but saying that these two authors are similar should be taken as an insult. Mass is by far a better writer than this author, and I would read her books instead, if you haven't started her series.

Overall, I would stick to reading An Ember in the Ashes series by Saba Tahir, if you have not already. We get all the comradeship, and romance that a good series deserves. I also remember the characters there, like Elias and Aquila, far better than anyone here. Stick with that book series, if you want a novel based on Ancient Rome. I give this book a two out of five.