I was one of the lucky contestants on winning The Missing Spirit by P.J. Maia off of GoodReads. It is a book that boasts mythology, fantasy, and adventure. It had all the trigger words to make me interested in the book, but alas, this was a challenging read to get through.
Journey back to the past: 200,000 years in the past. During a grueling Ice Age, ruthless gods ruled over cave people, mammoths, and saber-toothed-tigers. It is then that 15-year-old Keana and her immortal friends linger on the brink of divinity. They have waited their entire lives for their chance to awaken: the day they could become gods and goddesses has finally arrived. But danger strikes when a forsaken human tribe begins to hunt their elusive realm, hungry for a piece of their eternal privilege. Will the young gods-to-be embrace their heritage at the expense of never knowing the outside world, or will they find a way to escape, even if it costs them their right to live forever?
It took me two tries, but I should have DNF this book. The story was very confusing and hard to get into. Between the dialog, constant character changes, footnotes and dictionaries, I couldn’t fully grasp the story. There was soooo much going on!
It seems as if Maia pulled inspiration from all the pop-culture fantasy in media. The world described in The Missing Spirit reminded me of a mash-up between the movie Atlantis: The Lost Empire and the mythical Fields of Elysium from the Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey video game. The technology used is so advanced, yet lost to the modern world, that even I don’t fully understand what they do. I even saw a hint of wizardry when it came to revealing magic. Some of the ceremonies in the story reminded me of the sorting hat scenes from Harry Potter. The magic isn’t similar but more dangerous when misguided.
I had high hopes for this book, but it just didn’t do it for me. I rated it a two-star only because I was trying to find the end of all the chaos. I believe this is the first in a series, but I won’t be delving into the rest whenever it drops.
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