Review--The Unfinished Song: Initiate by Tara Maya

DEADLY INITIATION

A DETERMINED GIRL...

Dindi can't do anything right, maybe because she spends more time dancing with pixies than doing her chores. Her clan hopes to marry her off and settle her down, but she dreams of becoming a Tavaedi, one of the powerful warrior-dancers whose secret magics are revealed only to those who pass a mysterious Test during the Initiation ceremony. The problem? No-one in Dindi's clan has ever passed the Test. Her grandmother died trying. But Dindi has a plan.

AN EXILED WARRIOR...

Kavio is the most powerful warrior-dancer in Faearth, but when he is exiled from the tribehold for a crime he didn't commit, he decides to shed his old life. If roving cannibals and hexers don't kill him first, this is his chance to escape the shadow of his father's wars and his mother's curse. But when he rescues a young Initiate girl, he finds himself drawn into as deadly a plot as any he left behind. He must decide whether to walk away or fight for her... assuming she would even accept the help of an exile. 

I received this e-Book from the author for a review.

Tara Maya's The Unfinished Song: Initiate was an interesting read, and a very quick one too. I will admit to being a little confused in the beginning, as is general for me when starting a fantasy series. There's a whole new world to adjust to, I'm basically learning from the ground up so it takes awhile for the story to flow for me almost regardless unless I'm returning to a world I already know.

This one was interesting and still a little confusing. There is magic involved and it's connected to dancing, and if you don't past this particular test to be able to dance with a powerful group, then you can no longer dance ever again. Yeah, a little complicated in some ways. Dindi, loves to dance. It's what she yearns most to do. And she also can see the fae, which becomes a serious problem for her.

The story was rather quick in that we get a glimpse of Dindi's life and then she is immediately sent off as an Initiate to take her test with dozens of other children her age, 14 or so, from different clans. But there is still trouble afoot and it's pretty messy. There was a lot going on in the short pages and the p.o.v. changed quite a bit. It was generally third person from multiple points of view, but it became hard for me to know who to sympathize with, mainly with one or two characters because their actions were somewhat misleading.

There wasn't really any romance in this one due to its length, but there is definitely the hint at a budding romance between Dindi and Kavio, the exiled one. There is some sort of connection brewing between these two and they have only just met for a moment. So I expect there will be more to see in the future.

Overall it wasn't a bad read, just not my kind of read. A little too heavy on the fantasy for me. But Dindi was a very relatable character, being the "awkward" one. She had her own mind and other girls thought her strange, but she ignored them. So my rating is a 3/5, not because it was bad or super great, it just wasn't my kind of book. I feel conflicted on how to rate books when it turns out this way, but it wasn't horrible. If you like high fantasy type of [YA] books this might be the one for you.