Hey Guys!
Joe here with another review for you all!
Today we’re going to be talking about Ivan Amberlake’s ‘The Beholder’.
Joe here with another review for you all!
Today we’re going to be talking about Ivan Amberlake’s ‘The Beholder’.
Here’s a little bit of the Goodreads blurb to intrigue you!
Around the world, people die under mysterious circumstances. Each has a sign. Each is a piece of a jigsaw puzzle. A NYC interior designer Jason Walker receives a message saying he is the final piece
I’m not really into
the Urban-Fantasy genre but this book really captured me and has slightly
altered my view of Urban-Fantasy. Though I’m still not completely compelled to
the lovey-dovey side…
The first third of
the story, which is compiled of mostly action sequences and character
development, there were some really tense situations for the main character,
which was really - really good. Every time I put the book down, I would find
myself picking it back up again as it was kept drawing me back into this
fantastical but-yet so realistic world which was so greatly designed and
created by the author.
We’re also introduced
into this new world of the Light-Sighted and the Dark-Sighted (types of people
who are able to control energy created around them). This world and the views
from the people who live in it were described and written so greatly that I did
find myself thinking/hoping it was a real thing haha!
The world building
that is in this book is possibly one the most imaginative and innovative that
I’ve seen in a while, I honestly really enjoyed picturing the different areas
of ‘The Hall of Refuge’ and the other areas of the Light-Sighted refuge which
Emily and Jason explored; it was created so well that I was able to depict it
so well.
The middle third of
the story didn’t sit amazingly with me as it was more focused on the
relationship between Jason and Emily. Now don’t get me wrong, I love a-bit of
romance as much as the next reader, but it felt like the love was slightly
rushed? Jason and Emily fell intensely in love with each other at first
sight/touch/thought and it kind of felt a little forced.
Other than that, I
love the calming and atmospheric feel of the mansion they ended up in; it sat
right with me, I didn’t feel as if they had just come from these dramatic
battles and horrifying visions, it generally felt as if they had just started
in the mansion, which was entirely refreshing.
Also, The scenes of
which Jason was exploring the mansion also extends my appreciation for the
author’s creativity when world building. It was just done so well and intensely,
you could see that the author cared quite a-lot when it came to creating the
atmospheres in the book.
The final third of
the book was a mixture of the first and second; we see Jason finally getting in
touch with his powers and seeing the world as this brightly coloured place,
full of energy trails and allowing his sight to extend even further giving him
views of all objects in his path.
We also see Jason
dealing with so much emotional drama; some of which was understandable and
other parts, which you could tell the author added for a more dramatic feel and
effect upon the reader.
Honestly it didn’t
really affect me that much, I mean I did feel certain negative emotions for
Jason but I mostly thought it was quite generic and plain. Even so it was good to
feel sort of pumped up during that final third, I liked how, even though Jason
was conflicted by emotion we see him rise above it in a sense and continue his
day-to-day life back in normality.
There weren’t that
many characters to follow in this story, which I liked as it made the story
really easy and linear to follow.
Even so there weren’t
many main characters, the support characters were designed and created really
well, especially Matt; I could be dwelling to far into this but I did like how
he was this tattooed man but had an awesome and quite high-ranking job, it kind
of shone the light on the whole ’tattoos that are not covered are not
acceptable in the work-place’ which seems to have been going on for too long.
Jason is your generic
protagonist that we’ve all come to know, medium build and long Brown hair.
Now don’t get me
wrong; I have nothing against this design, as I’m here to judge what the
character is LIKE not what he LOOKS like.
What he is like is
pretty cool; he’s pretty much thrown into a world he knows nothing about and is
expected to become ‘The Chosen One’ within this short amount of time.
He handles it pretty
well; he is brave, strong, confident, calming, etc., but he is also scared and
petrified about everything this new reality has forced upon him, making him
quite dependent on other people when needed.
This made his
character so much more enjoyable and more able to relate to (if this reality
was real life)
Emily is the lead
female character who starts off as this awesome light-sighted woman, who is
always fighting and always-kicking ass!
We see her as this
strong and independent character in the first third of the book; but as the
book goes on she becomes more timid and dependent on Jason when it comes to
everything, which I kind of got annoyed at, until the final third when she just
goes all Milla Jovovich.
I did like how she
had this leadership/dominant vibe around her friends and other people.
One thing I did have
a hard-time coming to grips with was her hair colour; I kept picturing Emily
with a big mane of White hair, like the type of White hair you’d see on an
anime character or a JRPG character. I was a bit disappointed it was Brown.
Honestly; I did read it as Brown and kept vividly changing it to White… Haha!
As I said, the
support characters were pretty awesome in this and I felt that they played
major parts in this story that I found quite appealing and refreshing to be
pulled away from the two main characters and see the world from the support
characters eyes.
Though I did feel as
if the support characters were more concentrated on than the main characters
when it came to designs and appearances, due to Matt and Tyler’s design being
substantially better and more adequate than Jason’s design.
In all areas, the
design for the characters is pretty awesome; the author definitely has a knack
for creating these mental images of characters/places.
Overall, I really
enjoyed this book!
The writing was solid
and very easy to follow and made it understandable when certain events happened
such as the Light-sighted and Dark-sighted parts. The characters were designed
awesomely and had awesome depth within them.
But honestly; my
favourite thing about this book was the world building and the creative input
in this world; I just adored all of the ideas that the light-sighted see the
world in an array of bright colours where-as the Dark-sighted are literally
clouds of black smoke and streaks of red lightning.
As I said before I’m
not the biggest fan of Urban-Fantasy, but this book has nudged me closer into
trying other books from this genre out!
A massive thank you
too the author for sending me this book to review!
If you’d like to
purchase the book you can here:
Thanks for reading
this review peeps! if you want check out some of our other reviews :)
Have an awesome day
guys!
Joe :)
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