Two Renegade Realms by Donita K Paul
Realm Walkers #2
Visit the Author's Website HERE
Publisher: Zondervan
Publishing Date: December 23, 2014
In book two of the Realm Walkers Series, Cantor, Bixby, and Dukmee must band together to find the storied realm walker Chomountain after the devastating attack by the corrupt Realm Walkers Guild. But what they discover while traveling turns their mission upside down and they must now find a way to restore Chomountain.
I checked out a copy of this book from my local library. All opinions are my own. Buy a copy today!
My Thoughts:
I ended the review for book one by mentioning that while I was going to be keeping an eye out for book two, I wasn't going to have high expectations. And although I am reading this a year later I still remember this impression. I spotted it at the library and brought it home, keeping my expectations low.
The cover? Rocks. It depicts the story much better than book one did. I think that is the only improvement between the two books. SO many things were going on all at once and none of them got the proper space to flesh out. The big focus should have been the Lymen Invasion (aka saving the world), and while we did mosey our way there, the whole thing was easily wrapped up in a few pages. It was like a slow, unsteady lead up to a climax that you could miss in a blink.
Cantor was less enjoyable in this story. It felt like Paul may have been aiming for a Harry Potter book five vibe, but Cantor came across as much more obnoxious and obtuse. He is just sullen and always ready for a battle. I feel like he doesn't even do much during the novel but complain about how much time the group is wasting and wanting to hunt down bad guys.
Cantor's relationship with Bridger has seemingly improved though! Bridger, our shapeshifting dragon, was much more mature and less of a bumbly-stumbly annoyance. I thought he was cool under pressure and bit heroic even.
If you continue on to book three, prepare yourself for some romance. I think Paul has been planting some seeds between Cantor and Bixby, who is a very MG-ish version of Celaena. I struggled to feel anything between them and was even a tad weirded out by it. Bixby is practically a midget and Cantor is described as a giant in this book. Descriptions of Cantor picking up Bixby and placing him on his shoulders like a little doll made me cringe. Let's hope it develops differently, and more romantically, in book three.
I am cringing over sounding like such a nag, and I certainly don't mean to be so negative! The book was still enjoyable enough for a read and if you liked book one you will love book two even more. If you a fan of action/fantasy easy middle grade reads, this is your pick. And it still has talking dragons!! I'm walking away with just 2 stars.
Know anything else that may be similar to this? Any other awesome dragon stories? Leave those recs below!
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