For my first ever ‘Kindle First‘ choice, I of course went for the sci-fi book. Secondborn is about a society where secondborn children are seen as a lower class and live lives of servitude. Roselle comes from one of the highest class families, but must also serve under her fate, the Fate of Swords. As she is marked a traitor she must find find herself, face consequences and find her own destiny before her fate catches up to her.
I found Secondborn to be a decent read that lacked world building. I couldn’t imagine the buildings, landscapes or monuments properly because it seemed to lack description. Roselle ends up living within a tree, as that’s where soldiers live. But it’s not a tree tree, it’s a steel or concrete tree. I’m sure in the authors head the imagination was great, but the author didn’t inscribe this onto paper well enough.
I didn’t care for the main character Roselle. She switched from being weak and naive to strong and highly intelligent too much. One of the main points is she’s been brought up to be completely subservient as a secondborn, but she’s not the best at taking orders. Her character had a lot of conflicting attributes which weren’t due to character growth or change. Also, she seemed well trained with weapons, but she never seemed like a soldier as I didn’t think she would be able to hold her own in a war.
Side characters were used as plot conveniences. They often helped Roselle with one specific task and then seemed to disappear just as quickly. This happened with at least 3 characters. They met Roselle, helped Roselle and then was never seen or spoken to again. The first two times, I expected them to fall in with the group of soldiers for the overall plotline, but it just wasn’t happening.
I was interested in the different ‘Fates’ and how they came about. Especially how firstborns are now superior to secondborns. Although the fates are faintly reminiscent of Hunger Games and Divergent as they’re sectors of the population with different specialities. I felt there was a back story to how this government came to form, but it wasn’t included in this storyline. I would hope Bartol would expand on this later in the series.
One part of the blurb confused me as ‘Now her decision to spare an enemy on the battlefield marks her as a traitor to the state.’ isn’t within the book. I felt like maybe in the first draft that was going to be part of the plot, but it was then changed. Roselle does spare a life, but it’s never a focal point as no one else finds out. That should definitely be changed before publishing.
The pacing was very up and down. It took a long time to introduce the Gates of Dawn faction into Roselle’s storyline. So a lot of filler was used to show Roselle adapting to being part of the soldiers and introducing random side characters. Within this filler, the romance subplot was bombarded.
As usual, I disliked the romance subplot because it seemed unrealistic. There was a time jump in the centre of the book which was unnecessary. It seemed to be for the sole purpose of telling the reader the romance has been going on for a length of time. This felt like lazy writing as Bartol didn’t need to actually write the romance progressing. It also felt jumpy for the actual plot as I questioned why nothing would have happened within that time frame.
Overall I didn’t particularly like Secondborn* and I most likely will not be purchasing the rest of the series when published. I assumed Secondborn was Bartol’s debut book, but I was wrong. So this was slightly disappointing to read.