Official Review: Suppliant by Laura Tree

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[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Suppliant" by Laura Tree.]

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i]Suppliant[/i] is a “New Adult” fantasy novel that follows a high school senior named Layla. Layla leads a perfectly normal life. Her parents are together, she's about to graduate high school, and the hot new guy in her classes is paying her a lot of attention. Then, the week before her graduation ceremony, her parents tell her that she's adopted. As Laya tries to work through this sudden bombshell, Damien (the new guy) tells her that he's from another world, and that Layla is destined to find the Azure Pendant and takes her to The Isle, a training school for young magicians. As Layla tries to find her way in this new world, she must search for the Azure Pendant and win the war against the Dark.

I disliked Suppliant for many reasons. The plot and characters in this book were severely lacking in quality, and I had difficulty getting past the poor grammar. The first few chapters of this book and the last few chapters were so completely different that it's hard to believe they're from the same book. At the beginning, this book seems like a contemporary novel, telling Layla's story as she finds out that she's adopted. Then, about half-way through the book, the plot does a complete 180 and takes Layla into a alternate reality with magic, evil queens, and mystical prophecies. I felt that the result of this was that neither storyline was really wrapped up nicely, and that it made it difficult to get fully involved in the story.

Another thing that was hard to get used to was the stagnant dialogue. The conversations between characters were awkward and boring, and it was difficult to imagine real people having conversations like the ones in this book. It was the same thing with Layla's internal dialogue. She was constantly saying things to herself that were obvious to anyone who had been actually reading the book, which stalled the plot and made for a really boring read.

I really wish that there had been more world-building in this book. Like I mentioned before, the plot changed completely in the middle of the book, giving neither story enough time to shine. This is especially evident in the fantasy story, because fantasy needs a certain amount of world-building to make it a good story. In Suppliant, the fantasy world-building was really rushed, leaving me with insufficient knowledge of this other Realm to really make sense of the story.

What little information I had about the Realm did not make me want to read the next books. The names and storyline were extraordinarily unimaginative. The good side is called “Light”, the bad side is called “Dark” and there’s a magical prophecy. Does any of this sound familiar? Yeah, it’s because this is the basis for a hundred other fantasy novels.

So, in conclusion, I did not enjoy reading this book. The poorly written dialogue, the lack of adequate world-building, and the bipolar plot all added up to a not-very-engaging book. Due to the lack of quality in this book, I can’t really recommend this to anyone. I rate this book 1 out of 4 stars.

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[ALynnPowers]

Aww... that's too bad...
I had the same reaction when I was reading your review from the beginning. It seemed so contemporary and then suddenly, out of nowhere it's about another world and a pendant!?! What?

The cover of the book is really awesome though. I must stop judging these covers!

[Michelle-lit]

Aww... that's too bad...
I had the same reaction when I was reading your review from the beginning. It seemed so contemporary and then suddenly, out of nowhere it's about another world and a pendant!?! What?

The cover of the book is really awesome though. I must stop judging these covers!

I had the same reaction. The fantasy aspect comes at the reader like a curve ball.
I don't see too many 1 out of 4 reviews. I think you did a great job expressing your opinions and pointing out the books flaws