The Memoirs of Elikai: The Children of the Solstice
AUTHOR: D. Alexander
PUBLISHED ON: June 8, 2018
GENRE: Dark Coming of Age Fantasy
RATING: 4.90/5
BOOK 1 OF THE MEMOIRS OF ELIKAI
MY THOUGHTS:
I generally try to write summary for the books but when you come across books like The Memoirs of Elikai: The Children of the Solstice, writing summary seems like the worse thing to do. Like how do you write a paragraph when you can just read this book? When I started this book, I had zero expectations. Like nothing. I had not even read the blurb. This is the impulsive beautiful and sexy cover screaming, come and read me. And so, ever the loyal, I did. And oh boy, oh boy. The Memoirs of Elikai is one of the most thoughtful, beautiful, crazy & freaking amazing book.
Let’s start with the theme of the book. Destiny vs Free Will. In simpler terms, a world where they make choices for you, destroy the evil even before it’s existence or give people the choice. The choice to chose. I don’t know which side will you chose. But when you have freedom to chose, it’s pretty great. At the same time, imagine a world. A world where you don’t even know what terrorism is or what corruption is. Because it was never allowed. Never given a choice to grow. Think about it, it’s pretty interesting topic. And while I know you may feel that there is no need for discussion, may I present to you this book? READ The Memoirs of Elikai: The Children of the Solstice and believe me you’ll love it.
The general story and writing. There are a couple of writing errors that I came across which I think should be an editorial error but things after that? AMAZING. I have been reading series a lot. And while most of the times, the first book is slow, at least the first half is. I didn’t feel like that. And that surprised me, honestly. I recently had a talk with my friend too about how suddenly, we came across books that felt repetitive in nature and focused on just tropes but not on characters and story. And that is not the case here. We have characters, with whom we can connect. We have characters with whom we can laugh and smile. We have characters with whom we can cry. And I think that is brilliant. The story though confusing at first, is never boring. I freaking loved every minute in this journey. From the first word to the last line, I was hooked. I still have questions and I don’t think that the first book in series should ever answer everything. And considering the nature of the book, I am sure the number of questions are going to keep on piling up rather than reducing.
While, this book is dark fantasy and there are way too many triggers, I honestly felt everything is perfectly well crafted. I don’t think there is even one scene mentioned where there was no side-reactions. Everything had it’s reasons. Books always change your life. There are some that increase pleasure in your life while some make you fall for characters. But books like this, books like The Memoirs of Elikai: The Children of the Solstice, they make you think. They make you question. And sometimes, it’s the best gift.
There is one advice, very popular in writing world, you don’t have to just make characters just secretive or mysterious and do a big revel what no one expected. It is a good thing to pull off, especially if you do it right. But if you don’t pull it off correctly, it is a big big big turn off. And needless to say, the author pulled this one perfectly too. There are hints given to the big revelations and while, I could easily put them together, it was fun to see just how much piece of puzzle I could crack.
In conclusion, I think depending on the social conditions we currently are, it is more than the need of the hour to read this and understand just how easy it is to be manipulated and how each action has a ripple effect. I fell in love with book and the authors writing and I can’t wait to see how much magic is being created in following books. I finished reading it just today but I know I am waiting for a chance to sit and re-read this again, once I get hold of physical book and while I am not a big fan of annotations, I want to annotate the hell out of this one.
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You can read the review for The World Breaker Requiem by Luke Tarzian here.
