~ Buy through the links below ~

Amazon.com – The Other Inheritance (The Inheritance Series) (Volume 1) by Rebecca Jaycox

Goodreads.com – The Other Inheritance by Rebecca Jaycox

Disclaimer: This book was sent to me by the publisher, Aelurus Publishing, Via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Genre: YA/Fantasy

Plot: One girl. Two worlds. Hunted in both.

Seventeen-year-old Reggie Lang is used to dealing with her alcoholic mother and fighting school bullies, but fate has thrown her a curve ball.

A biker dude shows up in her dreams, babbling about magic and a world called the Other. As the incidents keep piling up—like bringing a frog back to life in class—Reggie has to confront the mounting evidence that she’s not the normal girl she craves to be.

Reggie’s life is changing, and she has no idea why. Or whether she should believe the man in her dreams, who claims she’s in danger and that only he can keep her safe. But if there’s one thing Reggie will learn, nowhere is safe.

Opinion: I haven’t posted in a review in a little over a week, and this book is purely the cause of why. It takes me a day (sometimes two) to read a book, but this book took me over a week to finish. When I was actually reading it, I was skimming through paragraphs whilst doing my best not to constantly roll my eyes at the unattached characters and over-dramatized dialogue. Usually I can say that the plot is what kept me reading, but I honestly can’t even say that in regards to this book.

I’m not even going to bother writing a proper description for this book like I usually do, that’s how uninterested I am in it. Here’s my brief explanation: this story is basically about a girl named Reggie that has a few incidents at school where she accidentally brings dead creatures back to life. She starts getting pulled into these elaborate dreams where she speaks to a man who knew her father, who eventually explains to her that she has magic and that she needs to be brought back to another world called “the Other” in order to keep her safe. While all this is taking place, a bad guy from “the Other” sends his servant, Asher, to fetch Reggie from “the Real” (which is basically our world) so that he may steal her magical powers. So ensues an adventure in which Reggie falls for some “badass” servant guy while she learns how to use her magic…blah blah blah.

With that said let’s get to the point, this is the first work by the author Rebecca Jaycox. Though I commend her for her efforts, I just didn’t like much of anything in regards to this book. I’m overly curious if I was reading the same book as many other readers on Goodreads and Amazon, because this story has gotten a lot of reviews deeming it to be wonderful. I didn’t find this story to be wonderful at all, I found it to be simplistic and full of holes. I felt like an uncared for reader being drug through the mud and muck of a land that wasn’t even finished being constructed.

This story clips along at a fast pace, but so many things are only touched on and never explained again as the reader tries to catch up to where the author is going. Our main character Reggie suddenly realizes that she can wield magic, which is a pretty incredible concept to grasp if you’re an ordinary person (or Muggle) such as myself. This character is shocked for about three seconds, but then she starts acting as if a man/wolf creature is normal or that her gift to make roots from the earth move towards her is just OH SO CASUAL. Not only does she learn to almost completely control her powers in just one or two dreamscapes with her deceased father (realistic? I think not!), but she starts making out with the indentured named Asher (slave from “the Other”) after only knowing him for a few days! If you guys like a story with a rushed and highly awkward romance, you should definitely read this. I could have went along with this rushed romance that was forcefully shoved upon me, but it was nearly impossible to connect with any of these characters.

The CHARACTERS…UGH! They had no depth, no personality! I didn’t connect to one, NOT ONE! The author didn’t put the time in to carefully construct these characters, and it showed immensely. This could have been salvaged through dialogue, but that only made it worse for me. When Reggie and her alcoholic mother conversed, it felt so fluffed up and unrealistic. The conversations between Reggie and Asher literally made me groan in frustration because everything they said felt one-dimensional and were filled with too many exclamations. To me, the repetitiveness of multiple exclamation points looks like the writer took the easy way out when it came to describing a characters emotions in that moment. Asher saying “Reggie!” doesn’t tell me how angry he is, but “Reggie! “ he spit through gritted teeth with eyes raging like the depths of Hell itself…that does.

I’m usually not this brutal in a review, and I always try to showcase SOME sort of positivity…but I just can’t when it comes to this book. The plot was lacking and nothing set it apart from any other fantasy story that I have read. The characters were like wallpaper and the entire read was predictable and blasé. I was hoping that this story would improve as I kept reading, because that has happened in so many first-time books by authors that I have read. I kept hoping and hoping for it to get better, but it didn’t. Not even a little bit. I really don’t recommend reading this…