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PHEW. That was a lot packed into what equaled three days in the book!

Recommended: Sure
For a super fast-paced story with lots of high intensity fighting, for an interesting world of gods and magic, be ready for some "lore" moments where you read sections from the gospel to understand everything

Thoughts:
I think I can easily sum my overall answer as I like the world, and I don't like Annev. Annev annoys me as a character with his inconsistency and willful idiocy. The amount of times he would say he had decided and fully committed to a plan only to say two sentences later that there was no way he could follow through with that plan just about gave me whiplash. I can forgive some of his idiocy in chalking it up to "he's a teenage boy," but basically see everything relating to Myjun for further examples of how annoying he is. Overall he seems like a fairly weak-minded person, who is easily swayed by others' words and actions.

Smaller issues arose in here that took me out of the story. I had to work hard to suspend disbelief at times, like the fact that only about three days passed in terms of the story, and in those three days Annev slept for maybe 3 or 4 hours. That would be rough for anyone, but in his case he was doing constant high-intensity running around and fighting, life-or-death stuff, so how the hell is he not falling down tired?! Apparently the twist is that Annev is actually Jack Bauer.

The 'romance' between Annev and Myjun was weird. Ignoring how Annev acknowledges his many bad ideas and just chooses to stick his head in the sand about them, it all seemed to come out of nowhere and really intensely, too. From what we get in the story, they can hardly ever talk to or see each other and have only been "courting" for like 6 months. Myjun may have become the most interesting character in the last few chapters though, and I will probably pick up the second book JUST to see what happens with all that craziness at the end.

The end. Man. I'm fine with not giving everything away, but there are still so many questions and unexplained aspects that it didn't really have a lot of pull to read the next book. The events we end on, and presumably would pick up on, were pretty mild and we have no idea what they matter. I wanted more of a Big Reveal kind of moment so that you're blown away and hooked and cannot wait to see more now that you know The Secret.

Ok. I know that sounds like a lot of me listing out so many things that I disliked or that annoyed me, and honestly even I'm surprised by how much I had given how much I did actually enjoy reading this. I loved the interesting side characters, and I wish some of them had more of a starring or lasting role. I loved that any time I had to stop reading it was a bad time to stop reading, because there's always something exciting or important going on. You will not be bored at any point in this, I promise! I loved the elaborate belief system that's woven in through everything, and the larger-than-life humans who end up getting sucked into it. (Wait, are they all human though?) I love magic, and I love the idea of things like sharp air, and shadepools. I want more of that, which seems like it will be coming in the second book, and that is why I'll likely continue with this series. The worst thing about reading an ARC is that not only do you have to wait until the next book is published, you have to wait until the first book is published.

Thanks to NetGalley and Justin Call for a free advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. ( )

Thank you to Blackstone Publishing and Edelweiss for letting me read and review this book.
I had heard rave reviews of this book and was very curious about it. It was not at all what I expected it to be. It was much more involved and a lot of depth too and very much epic fantasy similar but still quite different from Brandon Sanderson's writing.
This was quite a bit different in that this book is about the origin story of a dark lord. This is about the villain, not the hero.
In this story, Annev is an acolyte at the Academy of Chaenbalu training to be an Avatar or a person who retrieves magical artifacts and brings back to the Academy where the items are safeguarded, locked up and kept in a vault to prevent others from misusing magic and from the artifacts falling into the wrong hands.
Annev isn't like the others at the Academy. He has secrets in his past surrounding his birth and such and he finds himself torn between the teachings and such of his mentor, Sodar and that of the Masters at the Academy. He has to decide who he is and what he wants to be and what he wants to do with his life.
This story has a lot of darker tones and themes in it than I'm used to and some creepy things - I don't handle creepy etc. very well usually.
It's very much a deeper story that is told here about Annev, his friends, his love, his mentor and what they go through and decide to do and what they have to face. There are also some surprising twists that come out of nowhere and throw you off - at least they did me.
If you like Brandon Sanderson's epic fantasy series like Mistborn and such, you'll definitely want to have this on your list to pick it up and check it out. ( )

http://speculiction.blogspot.com/2023/02/review-of-master-of-sorrows-by-justin.h... ( )

I was attracted by the premise on the cover. It promised a change from the normal 'normal boy finds out he's special and has to save the world'. Finally something different.

Unfortunately the book's writing doesn't help. Lots of grammatical errors, unfortunate name choices and vague descriptions of who does what. Everything together makes it rather difficult to create a picture of what is happening at critical points in the story. This book could have used a good editor, but then I think it would have been a magnificent novel and story.

Is it better than anything Patrick Rothfuss wrote? Yes. Is it better than the Locke Lamora series? Not at all. If you're a fan of a specific kind of fantasy fiction then you will probably enjoy this novel. If you are someone who wants good quality writing then pick up something else. ( )

Now that I've read that our hero is destined to become the dark lord I'm intrigued. I just don't see that happening and honestly I hate stories of fates that can't be changed so the author better bring me along in a well done way or I'm going to feel like the story is being forced on me and on him. I liked Annev, his path is interesting. There's also a piece in this that says that people who are not completely whole in body are the children of a dark god and that has some undertones I'm not completely comfortable with. Overall it's interesting but there are issues that the author will need to deal with in the story.
It feels like an Eastern European setting and appears to use Irish as the language of magic, sigh, ( )