Amazon | Barnes & Noble | GoodreadsTitle: Daughter of Chaos (Red Magic #1)
Author: Jen McConnel
Publication Date: March 25, 2014
My Pre-Reading
Synopsis: There comes a time in every witch's life when she must choose her path. Darlena's friends have already chosen, so why is it so hard for her to make up her mind? Now, Darlena is out of time. Under pressure from Hecate, the Queen of all witches, Darlena makes a rash decision to choose Red magic, a path no witch in her right mind would dare take. As a Red witch, she will be responsible for chaos and mayhem, drawing her deep into darkness. Will the power of Red magic prove too much for Darlena, or will she learn to control it before it's too late?
Daughter of Chaos is the first in the Red Magic paranormal YA trilogy.
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Review: I honestly don't know how you could go wrong with witches, mythology, and a little chaos! Daughter of Chaos was an exciting read, and very different from pretty much every other book I've read recently. I didn't want to put it down!
At first, I wasn't really Darlena's biggest fan. She was kind of annoying, got her feelings hurt too easily, and made friends with people she should probably have avoided. And she can't make a decision. To be fair, it's a decision that will determine the course of the rest of her life... but still. It's not like she didn't know that this choice was coming. As the story progressed, however, I actually grew to like Darlena and even sympathize with her. I wanted her to succeed, and I still want to see her succeed in the rest of this trilogy. The goddesses are pretty scary sometimes, and I can kind of understand why she's so terrified of dealing with them. I'm looking forward to seeing her continue to grow in the rest of the series though, because I think there's still quite a bit of room for improvement.
One of my favorite parts of this book was all of the incorporated mythology. Seeing Hecate's name in the synopsis made me expect Greek mythology, but I was not expecting all of the other goddesses thrown into the mix. And it was actually really neat! There were goddesses from religions I'd heard of and goddesses from mythologies I had no idea even existed. I was never really confused though, because Jen provides enough background into each of them that I felt like I knew enough to understand why they were appearing to Darlena. It makes me wish I had taken a mythology course or something in school so that I would know more than just the Greek/Roman side of things!
For the most part, the plot moves along at a pretty decent pace and I didn't really find myself bored or confused. There were a few things that bothered me a little bit (like Darlena not recognizing Greek letters even though she's obviously studied some Grecian mythology), but they were really minor and probably just personal things that don't affect the story or the enjoyment of it. I would still totally recommend this book to anyone who loves YA Paranormal/Supernatural books, especially ones with magic and witches and mythology. I'm really looking forward to reading the rest of the series! A 4/5.
--Ashley
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