A first attempt at a novel by a young writer, this had some good fantasy elements but needed more work to be a better finished book. ( )

The Branding by Micaela Wendell is written for the YA audience. Morwen Aleacin is is a teen age Elf and Armando is an aging human Warrior who is secretly teaching her to fight.
Her sister disappears into the forest and Morwen sets out find her and bring her home. There only one big problem Dark Wizard Tobias has Brynn. Tobais places a brand on Morwen, and it beings to change Morwen into a monster. With the help of an Elf boy Alan, she sets off to find a wizard to take the brand off. ( )

I really enjoyed this story. I discounted the quality, due to the immaturity of the author, and just plowed through. ( )

I tried to read this, I really did. Unfortunately, the author's youth shows in the maturity of the writing. It was unreadable. ( )

Overall the story seemed to have a lot of potential with solid plot in mind but... The author was young they made this in seventh grade which would put her at 12-13 and I think it defiantly shows

This story needed to be way more fleshed out before publication.
Characters randomly almost die get saved and move on in single page. Weeks of travel take place in the flip of a page.

I feel like the author knew what they wanted to happen in the story but lacked the experience to move the story along in a more seamless way. As I've heard some authors call it, the book is in need of transition putty.

For example a characters father disappears you want that character to train and to begin a journey for revenge and adventure.

In a normal book you would hear about the troubles of life as single parent struggles to support 2 children and training for years to meet the goal of becoming a warrior. A journey where the character meets a mentor or gets a special power somehow.

In this book it felt like all the in-between was missing. A missing father, a vow for vengeance, a hermit elderly warrior mentor and 3 years of training all in the first 8 pages. Followed up with mom taking the kids shopping with BAG of gold...

It feels like a series of outlined scenes that could make up a great novel if time to flesh out the story as well as refine the dialog was taken. It's not the destination but the journey that matters most.

This author is 16 now for perspective shes lived 1/3 longer then she had when she finished the first draft of this book.

I hope she continues to write and improve. There is nothing I enjoy more then a fantastic story. ( )