Review of The Lightning Child

[Ukaegbu Confidence]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The Lightning Child" by Quinn Lamothe.]

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4 out of 5 stars

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I always tell myself to mentally clean up everything I know about a book's genre. This way, I accept and appreciate every new idea the author presents. This book, The Lightning Child by Quinn Lamothe, is one of those books for which I needed to clean my mind.

One morning, Lunaria and her brothers, Genra and Hernna, were on a scheduled hunt. When they were about to leave, there was a sudden change in the forest. Next, the siblings heard the growls of wolves and braced themselves for battle. At first, they thought the Wolf-Ones were there to steal their hunt, but the ambush ran deeper than that. The Wolf-Ones attacked the siblings, and they must unite to keep themselves alive. When Queen Ithagmir heard this, she was furious and ready to go above and beyond to see whoever was behind this burn for it. What could be the reason for this ambush? Given the abundance of animals in the forest and the offer of the sibling's kill, why did they still attack them? Find out by reading this book.

First, this book has its perks. I have read many fantasy books, but I have never seen a plot similar to this one. The plot is so unique that I wondered what new thing I would see next. Nothing, not even the book cover, could have prepared me for this storyline. One scene that left me dumbfounded was when I read that the queen had to gut her child to test her healing abilities and help her grow stronger. I kept thinking about all the ways that could go wrong.

Another instance that stood out to me was when I learned that Hernna's father had to take out two of his arms while training to even out the fight. This book's ideas were mind-blowing, and I give the author the maximum compliment. If you want to know what these instances are about, dive into this book. These are a few excerpts that stood out to me. The book cover is also another loveable aspect of this book. The plot is well-developed, and there was always something to look up to as I turned the pages. The portrayal of Lunaria's emotions was excellent. You could feel the anger by reading about her reaction to a particular scenario.

Unfortunately, there are a few negative aspects to this book. As much as the storyline was captivating and held my attention, it felt like it was overstretched. It took too long for the story to climax; I had to go through each war per city when that could have been shortened since the outcome was a victory for the protagonists. Another negative aspect was the editing. The book's editing was subpar, with errors present in nearly every chapter. This negatively impacted my reading because most of the names are not something we've heard of, so I kept slowing down to recheck and see that this is not another new word created by the author for this book. Some dialogues had missing words; I found it hard to fill in the blank spaces. Considering these aspects of the book, I rate it 4 out of 5 stars.

I recommend this book to lovers of fantasy books. Before diving into it, mentally clean up everything you already know about the genre. If you love wolf stories like I do, you need to forget everything you know.

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The Lightning Child
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[John Silweya]

I always tell myself to mentally clean up everything I know about a book's genre. This way, I accept and appreciate every new idea the author presents. This book, The Lightning Child by Quinn Lamothe, is one of those books for which I needed to clean my mind.

[NetMassimo]

This seems like a fantasy novel with great potential in need for some polishing starting with proper proofreading and possibly cutting some bits. Thank you for your great review!