Wake Of Vultures // I Had My Grumbles But It Really Was A Great Read

Wake of Vultures (The Shadow #1) – Lila Bowen

Published: 29th October 2015
Source: Bought
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Western
My Rating:

A rich, dark fantasy of destiny, death, and the supernatural world hiding beneath the surface.

Nettie Lonesome lives in a land of hard people and hard ground dusted with sand. She's a half-breed who dresses like a boy, raised by folks who don't call her a slave but use her like one. She knows of nothing else. That is, until the day a stranger attacks her. When nothing, not even a sickle to the eye can stop him, Nettie stabs him through the heart with a chunk of wood, and he turns into black sand.

And just like that, Nettie can see.

But her newfound sight is a blessing and a curse. Even if she doesn't understand what's under her own skin, she can sense what everyone else is hiding -- at least physically. The world is full of evil, and now she knows the source of all the sand in the desert. Haunted by the spirits, Nettie has no choice but to set out on a quest that might lead to her true kin... if the monsters along the way don't kill her first.

I liked this book and I'm glad I finally read it. It’s actually been on my shelf gathering dust after I snapped up a used copy because Danya raved about it. In fact, I only picked it off of my shelf to read because she did another post about underrated books and it reminded me I had it to read. So really, this book is all Danya’s fault but I really am glad I got around to reading it. I did have my problems with reading but it was more down to my reading experience rather than being the book’s fault. It can’t have been that bad, anyway, I did go ahead and buy the second book despite the thins Danya said on that one, so there’s that.

I will get the biggest negative of this book out of the way first: I didn’t like the writing style. I think the way it was written meant it took me longer than necessary to get drawn into the story because I felt disconnected from Nettie. I just didn't get why I should care about her while I was reading. At least, not at first. I think because it was written from Nettie’s POV and in the way she speaks so you had the cowboy style of speaking for everything which I didn’t get and it put me off a bit.

Another grumble is that it took a long while to get going. Because Nettie was stumbling about in the dark so was I and I didn't like it because it meant it took forever for the story to truly get going. I hate when a book drags it's feet. The beginning could have been shortened down a touch so she met Dan far sooner and began her journey. The story of her being a ranch hand was dull and I get she was pleased as she moved from being, essentially, a slave for her ‘guardians’ to working for a living doing something she loved and I think some would appreciate learning a little about her before things got crazy and weird, I wasn’t one of them.

I don't want it to seem I didn't like this book, though, because I did. Nettie was this fantastic character. She wasn't worldly and educated and that showed but it didn't make me like her any less. In fact, I liked her more for her fresh and innocent view if the world. I mean, she had an innocence about her despite her terrible treatment growing up and the level of abuse she received. It was lovely to not have her be totally jaded. She had a bit of a black white view of things as she knew no better. Men were good and women bad. She identified more as male but recognised she was female and I loved how she completely brushed off the whole sexual identity. She had no qualms about someone being gay and didn't stress herself too greatly on how she fell in terms of sexuality. She knew she had far greater things to deal with simple things such as romance and instead was focused on that. She didn’t bother letting anyone tell her who or what she was and that was really great to see.

Really it was a great read and my grumbles are simply with writing style of the book which really took a while for me to connect with. The story was solid and once it got going I was flying through it. The way it ended left me needing the next book in my life and I will be starting that soon and seeing where Nettie is going next with all of the new things she has discovered about herself.

Have you read Wake of Vultures, what did you think? What was the last book you read because someone else raved about it and made you have to buy?