The Ale Boy's Feast Review

The Ale Boy's Feast: A Novel (The Auralia Thread)

Author: Jeffery Overstreet

Let me first start by saying that when I agreed to review this book, I didn’t realize it was part of a series. That does complicate things when you come in on a series already underway. There were elements of the story that would have made more sense to me had I been following the series from the beginning.

That being said, Overstreet has a wonderful imagination. Even though I wasn’t always able to clearly follow what was going on in the story, the imagery was fantastic. I wish I could see things the way he does and then put them down on paper.

The characters are deep and display a lot of emotion and change throughout the story. There is a lot of death, a lot of hope, and some very imaginative fantasy in the mix. I was able to catch on to what the story was about, but never quite fully understood where the author was leading.

The ending, to me, left me wondering what just happened. Again, perhaps, if I had read the other novels it would make more sense. However, given the details throughout the story, I’m not entirely convinced of that. There are numerous series out there that are able to encapsulate a story within each individual novel so that the reader isn’t left behind by not starting at the beginning. I would have liked a little more of that here.

Have you ever read a book that spent so much time and energy leading up to the ending that the end itself was anticlimactic? That’s where I was with this one.

While I applaud the author’s imagination and writing style, I'm left feeling like a lot of time spent created confusion rather than catharsis.

*** I received this book free of charge from Blogging for Books for my honest review.