Finally! I felt like I would never finish Froi when I started it.
That sounds like the start of a bad review, but I promise it's not. By the end of the book I was loving it and crying for the characters the same way I did with Marchetta's previous book. As with Finnikan, Froi was a very slow start. I really wish the first 100 pages either had a bit more of the characters connecting to each other or was shortened. I didn't start really getting into the story and seeing the deeper themes of the book until the characters started to thaw toward each other. While I am all for realism and these two nations had no reason to trust one another, I do believe from the first book that some of these characters were better people than they acted in the first 1/3 of the book. It was almost like they had forgotten or had to relearn life lessons that they had learned in the last book.
That being said, once they started to connect to each other and the clues to Froi's past started to come to light the pages seemed to fly. While it took me weeks to get through the 1st 200, I think I read the last 2/3rds of the book in a matter of hours. I hated to put it down to drive home and had to resist picking it up at stop lights. The end does leave you hanging, but then it is the middle book of a trilogy. I could even have lived without the epilogue. That teasing info almost makes the wait for book three worse.
I would recommend this ONLY for mature readers. The early themes of sexual violence and brutality to women are very harsh. Once you get deeper into the book, the themes of national identity and what creates a culture emerge as well as family of blood vs family of the heart.
That sounds like the start of a bad review, but I promise it's not. By the end of the book I was loving it and crying for the characters the same way I did with Marchetta's previous book. As with Finnikan, Froi was a very slow start. I really wish the first 100 pages either had a bit more of the characters connecting to each other or was shortened. I didn't start really getting into the story and seeing the deeper themes of the book until the characters started to thaw toward each other. While I am all for realism and these two nations had no reason to trust one another, I do believe from the first book that some of these characters were better people than they acted in the first 1/3 of the book. It was almost like they had forgotten or had to relearn life lessons that they had learned in the last book.
That being said, once they started to connect to each other and the clues to Froi's past started to come to light the pages seemed to fly. While it took me weeks to get through the 1st 200, I think I read the last 2/3rds of the book in a matter of hours. I hated to put it down to drive home and had to resist picking it up at stop lights. The end does leave you hanging, but then it is the middle book of a trilogy. I could even have lived without the epilogue. That teasing info almost makes the wait for book three worse.
I would recommend this ONLY for mature readers. The early themes of sexual violence and brutality to women are very harsh. Once you get deeper into the book, the themes of national identity and what creates a culture emerge as well as family of blood vs family of the heart.
