PREVIOUSLY POSTED
Dear Readers, Aliens and Creatures, here we have Mira in the forest. What could possibly go wrong?🙈 **cough cough, EVERYTHING** Welcome to ‘As She Ascends’.
▪️PSA:
Baths are always important. 😢
▪️BASICS:
Official title: As She Ascends
My title: Mira, the Ball of Nerves
Author: @unicornwarlord #jodimeadows
Publisher: @harpercollins
Fav character: Hush
Type: Book – Fallen Isles Series
Will I read the last book: Yes 🤦♀️
4/5
▪️INTRO:
We are back with Mira and her band of escapee misfits now trapped in the forest trying to find a way to the coast. Perils abound in the forms of soldiers chasing them, Altan who still has their scent, freak storms that flatten trees, escaped assasins intent on killing Mira (ehem… I may start rooting for him) and abandoned warriors in camps.
▪️REVIEW:
Mira is surrounded by her oldest and dearest friends and those she returned to save, including her now EXTREMELY silent love interest Arau… Of the oh so Silent and poorer Idris people. The group, that could come together and become invinsible with a strong leader, instead begins to fall apart.
Cracks arise as they make their way from port to port trying to figure out what the Empire is planing, where the dragons are being taken to and what exactly the Luminary Council knows.
Will Mira be capable of bringing them together and ploughing through these obstacles, or will her obssession with her scarred face, her propensity for ridiculous self-pity, her selfishly impulsive actions and her incessant “I’m sorry”, get in the way?
As we follow along with her we can only watch and wonder: how much further will she break and when will she grow a spine? 😒
Mira is a bumbling disaster that you wish would just grow some cojones, develop some sense and stop being so damn spoilt and selfish, but she is so pathetic… hating her is almost like kicking a puppy.
🌟🌟🌟What saves this book for me are her foils, Chenda and Gerber? 🌚 (can’t recall her name 😬) who don’t hesitate to tell her that she is being pathetic, that she needs to own her actions and to stop being so flighty.
If in book 3 I read more than 5 sorrys, I may have to draw Mira on fire. 😒😏
▪️OBSERVATIONS:
📌 It has been a while since I read of someone who cared SO MUCH for her looks…it is BEYOND any sense. She may have been beautiful, but I don’t recall her being described as THE MOST beautiful. 🤦🏻♀️ Although her face seems to be, in her head, the only reason her mom cares for her… It seems a tad excessive.
📌 Her repeated idiotic apologies and superior patheticness WEAKNESS… Make me wonder if the author’s intention was indeed to create a character fit to be hated. 🤔 She managed to do so with the Orphan Queen in The Mirror King… So I am suspicious of her tactics.
📌 Again, given the lush, tropical setting of this book, I am still amazed at the lack of bothersome insects like mosquitoes, and pests like mice and cockroaches. Odd.
📌 These kids engage in a lot of behaviours that would get you killed in real life. (Okay, duh, yes… FANTASY… 🤭 But still!) I.e. Standing out as fugitives and announcing which country/nation you are from. 🤦♀️ (Is it bad for me to want teenagers to be intelligent?!)
📌 Am I being less harsh on this book because of all the brown skins? Unsure.
▪️CONCLUSION:
QUESTION: If in your “selflessness” all you do is stubbornly follow what YOU want to do, while putting others in danger. Is that being selfless or self-serving?
I find that Mira selfishly puts those around her at risk with her senseless and impulsive behaviour. She is uncaring, and generally unfeeling towards others, apart from her dragons and occasionally her love interest and friends. If she were portrayed as a colder character, or a more composed character, this would be fine. Instead, she comes across as duplicitous and fake. Someone who wallows in her own misery and doesn’t realise that people around her have their own hardships and can’t afford to keep babying her. 🤦♀️
Anyway, I will still be reading the next book and it is still a good read.
Feel free to answer my question above and join in the conversation.
Over to you.
Remember to like and comment. 😉
