Review: Storm Watcher

Storm Watcher by Maria V. Snyder
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Maria V. Snyder quickly became one of my favourite authors through her The Chronicles of Ixia series. It’s a wonderful fantasy series, one I’m rather addicted to, and awaiting the ninth book is driving me crazy. Thus, when I saw another of her books on NetGalley I decided I needed something to tide me over.

Storm Watcher is completely different to the series that made her famous. Storm Watcher is a middle grade contemporary read. It’s a decent read, and yet it isn’t quite the high of her young adult fantasy novels. For me, there just seemed to be something missing. It was lacking in the usual wow factor, being mediocre and failing to give us that something more.

The story comes with a lot of messages, many of which will be noticed by the younger reader. I believe being an older reader of this story has allowed me to see where things are lacking. For example, our main character has a fear of storms and his mother has recently died. It isn’t too hard to realise there is a connection between the two. I’ll give Snyder props for adding more than the one simple connection, yet it all felt too predictable from the start. It wasn’t merely in regards to the connection between the two; it was also in relation to the other aspects of the story. The way the character interactions developed. The way people felt towards each other. The way forgiveness would be earned. The way people would get what they wanted. It all seemed a little too predictable for my liking, feeling a bit like a carbon copy of many other books and mixed in with a slightly different dog story.

Moreover, the speed felt all over the place. Somehow, it was both too fast and too slow. I’m not quite sure how it managed this – and yet it did. The story progressed from one point in time to another, with the jumps seeming to appear out of nowhere. The story didn’t seem to move all that much though. Things were happening, but there wasn’t a lot. Thus, it was too fast and too slow all at the same time. I feel as though the story would have been much more enjoyable had the pacing been better. Furthermore, the ending seemed to come all at once. It was obvious where things would head towards the end of the story, and when it came about it was over extremely quickly.

Overall, it was a decent enough read. It is far from Snyder’s best, but it will be enjoyed by a specific group of readers. Unfortunately, I do not fall into the category of readers this was aimed at meaning I was more aware of the faults than I could have been.

As a final note, I’d like to thank NetGalley for allowing me to read this.

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