Book Review: Truth and Phantasm by Teelia Pelletier (Strong Hearts are Mandatory #4)

 

I did promise to review this once upon a couple of years ago, didn't I? Funnily enough I've owned the ebook for like well over a year already, I just never got to reading and reviewing it before. Let's dive in now, though, spoilers ahead.

Media is being cast into darkness by the Jester. Video, now aware of the mage's identity, will have to stand against him together with a team of allies, in hopes of defeating him. During her journey she dives deeper into the practice of magic.

I think that at this point I can just be honest: I don't think this is the book series for me. It does have elements that should really appeal to me all things considered: It is a xenofiction with animals protagonists, it has lore, it has magic. Those things usually appeal to me. 

But something about the Mandatory books just never really worked for me personally. I do think that objectively speaking these books are decent enough; I don' think they're bad or anything. But by now, four books in, I've come to realize that there's just a pretty big disconnect between me and this book series. Despite really trying (I didn't read and review four books for nothing), I just can't really get into the world, or characters, or even the plot for that matter. And I can't even 100% put my finger on why, because, like I said, this book does contain elements that usually really appeal to me.

I guess it's just a subjective thing that I can't get into these books. It happened to me before with some other books that I read, and Mandatory is one of these apparently. Sometimes I just don't click with a story, and this is such a case.

All this to say: I think that this will be my final review of the Mandatory series. These books are just not for me, I guess. I do recommend you give them a try if you're a fantasy and/or xenofiction enthusiast, but for me personally these books just don't really work. 

Ah well, now let's talk about this book itself, aside from my general disconnect with it. It was pretty decent, I'd say. I like how we delved more into backstory and lore and the logistics of magic in this one, that was pretty enjoyable.

I also quite enjoyed Video as a protagonist still and liked seeing her journey, how she really managed to grow and even use magic in order to try and take down Phantascope.

Where I do have some issues is the pacing though. There is, early on in the story, a lot of recapping, and I do mean a lot. Later on in the book there's also some big dumps of backstory or information. And these big sections just kinda kill the pacing for me, especially early on in the book. Instead of the story kicking off and getting straight into things, we're spending the first few chapters mostly just re-establishing things the audience would've already known. I get that there was maybe some time between the releases, but then the recapping should've stayed at a minimum, because killing the pacing isn't a good way to start of your book.

I also still find that there are quite a lot of characters to keep tracking of in these books, and particularly too many characters with similar-sounding names. Names like Video, Stereo, Audio, Radio, Studio, etc., basically all the -eo and -io names sound so similar it's hard and confusing to keep up with who is who. This probably wouldn't have been an issue had the names been more distinct. But in general the cast of these books quite big and I had a hard time keeping up with who is who exactly from time to time, even not looking at the -io's and -eo's of the cast.

There was also one torture scene I thought was quite excessive to me, I really could've done without it. I get it, the mage is evil and we hate Phantascope and all that, but there's a scene around the climax where the mage basically keeps torturing Video to death in various painful ways, bringing her back, and then doing the same again in a different way. It just was a bit much for me, especially since it kept going on and on. Maybe I'm being sensitive here, I don't know, but I personally felt that the torture scene was a bit too excessive and long and cruel. Poor Video, man.

So yeah, overall still a pretty decent book, but I still really struggled with getting into it and the bad pacing and prominent recapping and info-dumping didn't do much for me. This is where I'll end my journey with the Mandatory books. If you love these books, good for you, I'm glad you managed to enjoy something I struggle with getting into. I also wish Pelletier the best on their writing journey and hope they continue to improve in the future.

Rating: 2.5/5