Review: Finnikin of the Rock

Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Finnikin of the Rock is a book that I really hoped I would love. I did like it, but it wasn't love. It took a while to get into, and it was difficult to get attached to any of the characters. It's one of those books that I feel was a good story but it didn't really grab me on an emotional level even though there were plenty of emotional events that I should have been feeling strongly about. I can't really say why, but it remained remote to me much of the time. I've struggled to know how to rate it, but I think I'm going to stick with 3 stars.

Even though I wasn't really emotionally involved, this takes place in quite a depressing world. It's about a people scattered in exile since their home was cursed 10 years ago and they are physically/magically prevented from returning to it. The exiles have been persecuted and slaughtered, subjected to refugee camps full of illness and starvation. It's bleak, and Finnikin's outlook is often pessimistic and discouraged.

Once I got to the moment when they face the curse, I found it kind of anticlimactic because I didn't really understand what happened. There was almost too much mysteriousness about it. I ended up with merely a fuzzy understanding of how the magic worked, the basis of the curse, how it could be broken, and how it tied into various previously unexplained abilities of some of the characters. I've read a lot - a lot! - of Fantasy. I didn't feel that this system was as well done as it could have been.

I haven't decided if I'm going to read the next book in the series or not. There was enough to the world that I'm sort of interested in reading more about it even though it didn't get my highest rating. Not everything I read has to be an absolute favorite. So maybe one day I'll feel like returning to it. But I also feel a bit ambivalent. I feel like the story is concluded enough as it is. The next book jumps to one of the minor characters, so that I don't really need to read the next one. Time will tell.



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