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The Last Changeling
Author: Chelsea Pitcher
Series: Faerie Revolutions, #1
Genre: YA, Paranormal, Fantasy
Publisher: Flux
Publication Date: November 8 2014
Format: ebook
Pages: 347
Source: NetGalley
Purchase: Amazon | B&N | Kobo
Chapters | Book Depository
Rating: ★★★. 5
A Kingdom at War . . .
Elora, the young princess of the Dark Faeries, plans to overthrow her tyrannical mother, the Dark Queen, and bring equality to faeriekind. All she has to do is convince her mother’s loathed enemy, the Bright Queen, to join her cause. But the Bright Queen demands an offering first: a human boy who is a “young leader of men.”
A Dark Princess In Disguise . . .
To steal a mortal, Elora must become a mortal—at least, by all appearances. And infiltrating a high school is surprisingly easy. When Elora meets Taylor, the seventeen-year-old who’s plotting to overthrow a ruthless bully, she thinks she’s found her offering . . . until she starts to fall in love. (Goodreads)
Elora, the young princess of the Dark Faeries, plans to overthrow her tyrannical mother, the Dark Queen, and bring equality to faeriekind. All she has to do is convince her mother’s loathed enemy, the Bright Queen, to join her cause. But the Bright Queen demands an offering first: a human boy who is a “young leader of men.”
A Dark Princess In Disguise . . .
To steal a mortal, Elora must become a mortal—at least, by all appearances. And infiltrating a high school is surprisingly easy. When Elora meets Taylor, the seventeen-year-old who’s plotting to overthrow a ruthless bully, she thinks she’s found her offering . . . until she starts to fall in love. (Goodreads)
**I received an advanced copy from
NetGalley via Flux in exchange for an honest review.**
Opening Lines
"I was seventeen when death crossed my path. Before that I'd only dreamt of twisted limbs and blood as bright as poppies. But late one night, death offered me an opportunity. She whispered dirty secrets in my ear and pulled back my eyelids with curling hands."
There are a lot of books out there that focus on fairies and sadly I haven't really read any of them. A couple are on my TBR list and I even own 3 books that focus on them but I've never had the desire to read them. So when I came across this book I was intrigued and decided it was time to finally read a book that focuses on fairies. I just have to talk about the cover quickly, IT'S SO PRETTY!!!! I love everything about it, the colour choice and how bright it is. I'm excited to see what this will look like in paperback or hardcover.
The Last Changeling is told from both Elora's and Taylor's perspectives. I found myself enjoying Taylor's POV more than Elora, Taylor's chapters just had more substance to them and I felt like the story was narrated well. I had a hard time with this when I first picked it up, with the way it starts off I was left feeling confused and as if I was missing major pieces of information. While the flashbacks did clear some of that I was still confused for the first half of the book. The book has a slow pace to it and really picks up about halfway through. I really liked how this book touches on a lot of topics that many of us YA would like to see more of. We had diversity, LGBT, death, bullying, dealing and finding acceptance and more. But at times it felt like too much was going on.
Because this is part of a series I expected that I would be left with a major or somewhat of a cliffhanger at the end. This is a good and bad thing, I like to be left with a cliffhanger but I know a lot of people don't. We they way this came to an end I was left with a lot of questions that I'm hoping will be answered in the next book or at least at some point in this series!
What kept The Last Changeling from getting 5 stars?
As much as I enjoyed reading The Last Changeling I found I couldn't connect with the characters...at all and this was a major thing for me.
The world building - I think this was the main factor as to why I couldn't connect with the characters, I didn't really know anything about the fae world. As a first time fairy read I went into this not knowing anything about fairies. I was expecting there to be somewhat of a background story, I would have enjoyed this if more time was spent giving the reader information about their world, the history, the fairies and how they came to be. Not having this information left my very confused at times trying to piece things together, it took away from me being able to see the whole picture.
The characters - At times I found the characters really lacked depth. They could be so one-dimensional which is unfortunate because Chelsea Pitcher has thrown together a selection of characters that I wouldn't have expected. Also, I found myself to be confused about both Elora and Taylor's character. I felt like there was more to Taylor that we didn't know about (granted this may be answered in the next book) and Elora, with how the story was written at times I forgot she was suppose to be a fairy.
The romance - While the romance had a natural and sweet flow to it I found that too much time was spent on this. I felt like this was more of a romance novel than anything else. At times it was very predictable, but I just wish and thought there would be more focus on the bigger issues at hand.
Overall, The Last Changeling was an interesting read. It may not have gotten 5 stars from me but I still managed to enjoy reading this. Will I continue with this series? Yes! Hopefully my questions will be answered in the next book, I'm curious to see what will take place in book 2.
Giveaway
About the Author
Chelsea Pitcher is a native of Portland, OR where she received her BA in English Literature. Fascinated by all things literary, she began gobbling up stories as soon as she could read, and especially enjoys delving into the darker places to see if she can draw out some light.
