Review: SPIN OF FATE by A. A. Vora

Review also available on Goodreads here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6436741002

Thanks go to NetGalley and Penguin Group for providing an eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

THE TL;DR: This is a solid read that struggles from some book one blues before picking up like a rollercoaster at the halfway mark and not letting up until the end. 3.75* Recommended.

THE SPOILER FREE REVIEW

First things first: Forget the "Avatar" comp title. I don't know who picked it, but the only thing that reminded me of it is in the spoiler section of this review. "Naruto" is a better comp, if only for the training sequences. Now, on to the meat of the review.

A. A. Vora credits her editor in the acknowledgements for the focus on the character relationships, and that paid off. Those relationships and interactions are what carry the book through some significant pacing issues and what I can only call major "book one of a trilogy" vibes. It's thanks to the characters that the book doesn't feel like it's moving only via Idiot Plot even when the characters make objectively stupid decisions; the characters make those decisions because they've already shown they're people who would make those decisions. Each terrible choice is so perfectly consistent with the character's actions up to that point that you believe it even as you want to throttle them for it. 

The characters are the reason to keep reading despite a quality to the book that I can't quite nail down other than it feels "off." That feeling isn't due to the quality of the prose, because the prose is good. I'm not sure I can fully articulate what does cause it. The pacing is part of it, both the slower first half and the breakneck second. Part of it is certain pieces of the plot that don't quite feel right in their places. But stick with the book through the first half, let it scoop you up and run you through the second half, and the payoff is worth it.

SPOILER FILLED (skip to CONCLUSIONS if you don't want spoilers)

That thing that reminded me of "Avatar"? That's the weird sheltering that both the Preservation and the Balancers do, that led me to write in my notes "There is no war in Ba Sing Se." There aren't benders, there is no Avatar figure, and everything I expected because the synopsis referenced "Avatar" was wrong. I do not know why it is a comp title here.

This book had *serious* "book one" vibes that honestly weighed it down. I believe if this had been written as a standalone, or even as book one of a duology, it would have been forced to be tighter and I don't think anything would have been lost by giving up chunks of the training. Ah, the training. The entire third or so of the book that takes place in Incaraz led me to wonder if this would be a DNF review. I really don't know if I would have gotten through that part if I hadn't committed to the review when I put in my request for the eARC.

This pacing struggle may have been compounded by the fact that it is difficult to keep up with the passage of time in this book. It sometimes took a page into a chapter to learn that there had been a jump of several weeks since the previous one, something that was not clear for me and that really mattered to my understanding of the scene. At one point we get a chapter from Aina's head, then one from Aranel's that starts two days prior, and if you aren't paying attention you may miss it. I'm glad I caught it, because I would have been very confused how this was all happening without someone dying before someone else got there.

My last major note (as I get all my negatives out of the way up front) is that I wanted one more scene in the ending. It did not feel satisfying to me. Some of that is my own heartache (shocker, at the end of book one of a trilogy the main trio is not all on good terms with one another), but the last scene before the epilogue just did not feel like a last scene to me. It didn't feel like the ending.

And one nitpicking note: Aina feels much younger than she's supposed to be. She's frequently described as "small" and her POV feels like she's maybe twelve years old. It's hard to remember she's about sixteen, because she feels four or five years younger than that.

And on to the positives! 

The world building in this book is EXCEPTIONAL. The magic system as well. There is so much that you don't get to find out in the main book that was tucked away in the linguistic notes at the back, and I'm glad I read them because there are some absolute gems in there. One of the locations mentioned a lot is literally floating around on a gigantic lotus. How is that not awesome?

My last review was for LITTLE THIEVES, and I called Margaret Owen a magician. A. A. Vora is more of a will-o'-the-wisp or a siren, leading you along with the promise of answers to all the questions she's led you to ask, dropping enough breadcrumbs that you can tell there's a cake up there as a reward. She makes you guess and second-guess everyone, and then rewards you for all the guessing by revealing the answers in a dramatic and delightful fashion. I was convinced that Kaldrav was the actual force destroying Toranic Law. I was sure that Agakor was being made to force people to such misery that they would choose erasure, and that was the source of the disturbances. I thought Zenyra had to be good because we already had Seirem and Kaldrav as the villains, and surely if Seirem was a villain that meant Zenyra was a heroine. Oh, how very wrong I was. (But just about Zenyra. Seirem and Kaldrav can go deep throat a cactus.) (PS can Aina catch a break? Her mom got erased by her surrogate mom, her surrogate mom is either an omnicidal maniac or the ultimate Pollyanna with a god complex, and the boy she has a crush on is gay for her clanmate. (That last one is a joke. I mean, it's true, but it's a joke about it being part of why Aina needs a break.))

The fact that this is book one of a trilogy weakens it, in my opinion. The pacing and the problems I have with the ending can both be attributed to the two books that haven't yet been announced. This book feels weighed down by what's to come after it. It's a testament to A. A. Vora's skill that it shoulders that weight as well as it does. I expect the next book to be better, and the third I expect to be frankly stellar, if the writer and her team keep at it.

CONCLUSION

This book has a strong beginning, lags for a third of it up to the midpoint, picks up for a very strong second half, then has a half-step stumble at the very end. This summary of it feels somewhat unfair, because there is so much that the book does very well. The rating also feels unfair. To be frank, I agonized over where on the 3.5*-4* range this fell. I asked a fellow bookworm and she asked me where it ranked next to my other 4* reviews. I had to admit it fell a little short, so it gets 3.75* from me.

All that said, regardless of any problems I have with the book, this is a very good book, and I recommend it without reservation to anyone who enjoys YA fantasy. I wish I could afford to preorder it instead of buying it later, because I want this book to succeed. This is a wildly creative and very good book, better than my star rating might suggest on its face, and it absolutely deserves to succeed.