fantasy, young adult
A young man betrays his twin sister seven years after his infamous father betrayed their country. Then a young scholar of modest means (The Raven Scholar of the title) performs the necessary evil of writing out the twin sister’s exile papers in order to skyrocket her own future opportunities. Years later, the results of these actions play out in the country’s competition for identifying the new emperor.
The Raven Scholar was a pleasure to read. While I worried at the beginning because it began similarly to other novels I’ve read (yes, there are plenty of tropes in this novel), it was its own story with fabulous characters, unique-but-not-overly-complex (the way I like it) political intrigue, and an engaging plot with multiple moving parts and constant activity. It was well-crafted and I made time to listen to this audiobook.
Characters had good sides and bad sides which is always fun to read. Hints were dropped which allowed the reader to guess at a few mysteries within. But there were plenty of surprises, and even humor (!), within the pages. While some might think it got a bit silly at times, I welcomed the lighthearted moments. I just really loved this one! It kept me very entertained!
Was it perfect? No. First, something bugged me. There were eight gods/guardians: bear, raven, tiger, fox, ox, hound, monkey, and dragon. The dragon contingent had never sent a contender vying to be the new emperor to the “games”. However, they always identified a proxy contender. Okay. But then why doesn’t the proxy participate in all the contests with the other seven contenders? It perplexed me.
Secondly, I got all the way to about the 80% mark thinking I’d be giving this novel 4-1/2 hearts. And then, Antonia Hodgson threw in some crazy stuff that was extremely difficult to swallow. It was too over the top, given the mood of the book up until that time. It’s the whole reason I dropped this novel to 4 hearts. It made me slightly regret all the time (22 hours of audiobook!) I’d put into reading this story. Such a shame. The novel did recover a bit in the end but I just didn’t really appreciate the direction the story went at that point.
And the worst thing is that I spent the whole novel assuming this wouldn’t be a series because it was so long! But, apparently, it’s a trilogy! 😭 And there isn’t even a date for #2 to be published. Sigh. If I’d know that it was a trilogy, I would’ve waited to read this one until closer to the sequel’s release date. Darn it!
The audiobook narrator, Daphne Kouma, had a really wonderful vocal repertoire and terrific voice acting that propelled the story forward. I loved all her vocal and acting choices. She had a lot of characters to cover and did a marvelous job! A+
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