I had the opportunity to read an ARC of The Thirteenth Guardian by K. M. Lewis (thank you Netgalley). My feelings on this book are nearly the opposite of what I felt about Children of Blood and Bone. While Children of Blood and Bone had fantastic writing, but just wasn’t the book for me, The Thirteenth Guardian had a story that clicked with me, but the writing itself didn’t match my love for the story.
What I Liked
I loved the story. The world is in chaos. Six individuals have to make their way to Innsbruck, Austria, because they have genetic traits that for some reason make them valuable. We don’t know why these people are special, or what the big secret is, until the very end. The book synopsis doesn’t really tell you that this is a disaster book, but this book is like Revelation on steroids.
The mysterious events are pretty cool, and seem to mirror the Biblical Exodus. The book heavily draws from the Bible and even some Medieval art. I loved this aspect of the story. As someone who lived in Italy for several years, I loved how some of these scenes took place in Rome and The Vatican, which I’ve visited a few times.
What Was Lackluster
Although I enjoyed this book so much that I sped through it in two days, I had to downgrade this book an entire star because I had problems with the writing.
Dialogue
The dialogue felt a little wooden and most of the characters didn’t use any contractions in their speech. I realize that some characters (like Data on Star Trek) talk without contractions as a part of who they are, but this is prevalent throughout the story. Here is one example I highlighted where the dialogue just wasn’t good:
"Oh, no. That is horrible news, Leo."
"Yes it is."
Do people really speak like this?
Head Hopping
This may be a stylistic issue on my part, but I prefer when we can’t see into every character’s mind. One instance of this that stuck in my mind was where the book hopped into a minor character’s head for one paragraph so we readers could see that she was attracted to the other character, and then went back to a main character. Was that necessary? Maybe the author could have shown her flirting, or left that out entirely. At the time, I thought maybe that paragraph foreshadowed a relationship between the two… but no… that character was killed off shortly afterwards.
The Ending
Most of the end of this book was fine. We find out what the secret is, the characters are ready to start the next chapter of their lives, and then… they start talking about going on this quest that would literally require a Deus ex machina to complete. Without giving away too much, the world has gone through Revelation on steroids, technology of any kind is pretty much kaputt, and they start talking about finding a large object at the bottom of the ocean thousands of miles away. The book is supposed to be part of a trilogy, so I guess they do go after it? I don’t know how they’ll manage it.
Conclusion
I enjoyed The Thirteenth Guardian. If I see the sequel on Netgalley at some point, I would read it, despite my critique about the writing. This is his debut, and it is an indie book, so I do believe that there’s a good chance that his writing will improve. Even if the criticisms remain in place for the sequel, it was a good story and I wouldn’t mind seeing how the characters would pull off this impossible task.