Title: Let the Sky Fall
Author: Shannon Messenger
Series: #1 - Let the Sky Fall
Format: Hardcover
Release Date: October 30th, 2012
My Rating: 3.0 out of 5.0
Series: #1 - Let the Sky Fall
Format: Hardcover
Release Date: October 30th, 2012
My Rating: 3.0 out of 5.0
Seventeen-year-old Vane Weston has no idea how he survived the category five tornado that killed his parents. And he has no idea if the beautiful, dark-haired girl who’s swept through his dreams every night since the storm is real. But he hopes she is.
Seventeen-year-old Audra is a sylph, an air elemental. She walks on the wind, can translate its alluring songs, and can even coax it into a weapon with a simple string of commands. She’s also a guardian—Vane’s guardian—and has sworn an oath to protect Vane at all costs. Even if it means sacrificing her own life.
When a hasty mistake reveals their location to the enemy who murdered both of their families, Audra’s forced to help Vane remember who he is. He has a power to claim—the secret language of the West Wind, which only he can understand. But unlocking his heritage will also unlock the memory Audra needs him to forget. And their greatest danger is not the warriors coming to destroy them—but the forbidden romance that’s grown between them.
Seventeen-year-old Audra is a sylph, an air elemental. She walks on the wind, can translate its alluring songs, and can even coax it into a weapon with a simple string of commands. She’s also a guardian—Vane’s guardian—and has sworn an oath to protect Vane at all costs. Even if it means sacrificing her own life.
When a hasty mistake reveals their location to the enemy who murdered both of their families, Audra’s forced to help Vane remember who he is. He has a power to claim—the secret language of the West Wind, which only he can understand. But unlocking his heritage will also unlock the memory Audra needs him to forget. And their greatest danger is not the warriors coming to destroy them—but the forbidden romance that’s grown between them.
My Review:
This book was a hard one to judge and while I am not 100% sure this is the correct rating for this book, it sits for the time being. I will get around to re-reading and re-reviewing this book when the time comes for the sequel. The book features a normal world, a California as we would think of it, but there is something much different and a twist that makes this book unique. Sylphs, or elementals able to control the winds around them.
The book starts off with Vane Weston, living a normal life, a world in which we all perceive to be real, and his turning upside down in a few moments notice. I enjoyed how he felt shocked, and the real turmoil and bewilderment as he finds out what he is and who he is. But the deeper confusion is what happened to his parents years ago. He is struck with grief and overall he finds it more annoying that the classmates he has look at him different.
Vane has visions of a girl, dreams almost of a girl who plagues his memories. The girl shortly reveals herself as Audra, a guardian to Vane, and she makes a mistake she believes she was trained never to make. While Vane is on a date and about to kiss his date, she becomes jealous and summons a northerly to separate the two. In a panic, she has alerted a group that wants to hunt and kill Vane. Her purpose, hide and protect Vane has been put in jeopardy because of her mistake, and it eats her alive.
The issue I had with this book, was there is four types of wind in the book. Each of them have their own personality and their own song. You have to be able to speak their language and sing their song in order to weave them. As well, you could combine the winds together and together they become stronger. How do you sing two songs, two languages at once? I don't understand that.
In order to even use a wind, or anything of the source you have to have a breakthrough. I took this as a realization that the winds are there, and you are able to speak to them, but how would you do such a thing? In the book Audra forces one on Vane, the first one. But how would you do it on your own if there was no one to help you? I just couldn't grasp the coming of the ability or how one would understand they had it. Was a hole that needed filling and never got done.
The other issue is that Audra, has starved herself. Apparently if a Sylph consumes food or water, their power decreases. So the sacrifice of sustenance for power, is that a choice we all would make? She feels like we do, she hungers and is thirsty, however she knows she's weak if she consumes. What would your choice be? And when it comes to someone you care about, someone you love, how far would you go?
Let the Sky Fall isn't a book about battles, or war; even if there a good battle near the end of the book its far less than desired. What the book has is a romance that keeps this book together. The ending surprised me, and is more or less the sole reason I am going to be reading the sequel, but behind that this book is average at best, something that I would re-read when the sequel comes out, but that's about it. I wish this book was better, had more fighting, and something that builds more back story to Audra and the Slyphs. There is so much more this book could have done, and time and time again it failed to do provide any closure, any real satisfaction.
The book starts off with Vane Weston, living a normal life, a world in which we all perceive to be real, and his turning upside down in a few moments notice. I enjoyed how he felt shocked, and the real turmoil and bewilderment as he finds out what he is and who he is. But the deeper confusion is what happened to his parents years ago. He is struck with grief and overall he finds it more annoying that the classmates he has look at him different.
Vane has visions of a girl, dreams almost of a girl who plagues his memories. The girl shortly reveals herself as Audra, a guardian to Vane, and she makes a mistake she believes she was trained never to make. While Vane is on a date and about to kiss his date, she becomes jealous and summons a northerly to separate the two. In a panic, she has alerted a group that wants to hunt and kill Vane. Her purpose, hide and protect Vane has been put in jeopardy because of her mistake, and it eats her alive.
The issue I had with this book, was there is four types of wind in the book. Each of them have their own personality and their own song. You have to be able to speak their language and sing their song in order to weave them. As well, you could combine the winds together and together they become stronger. How do you sing two songs, two languages at once? I don't understand that.
In order to even use a wind, or anything of the source you have to have a breakthrough. I took this as a realization that the winds are there, and you are able to speak to them, but how would you do such a thing? In the book Audra forces one on Vane, the first one. But how would you do it on your own if there was no one to help you? I just couldn't grasp the coming of the ability or how one would understand they had it. Was a hole that needed filling and never got done.
The other issue is that Audra, has starved herself. Apparently if a Sylph consumes food or water, their power decreases. So the sacrifice of sustenance for power, is that a choice we all would make? She feels like we do, she hungers and is thirsty, however she knows she's weak if she consumes. What would your choice be? And when it comes to someone you care about, someone you love, how far would you go?
Let the Sky Fall isn't a book about battles, or war; even if there a good battle near the end of the book its far less than desired. What the book has is a romance that keeps this book together. The ending surprised me, and is more or less the sole reason I am going to be reading the sequel, but behind that this book is average at best, something that I would re-read when the sequel comes out, but that's about it. I wish this book was better, had more fighting, and something that builds more back story to Audra and the Slyphs. There is so much more this book could have done, and time and time again it failed to do provide any closure, any real satisfaction.
