The Waking Land: Too many issues

The Waking Land by Callie Bates

I’m sure there’s an audience for Callie Bates’ debut novel The Waking Land, but after reaching the halfway point (53% to be precise), I also became sure that I was not it, leading to a DNF review.

The story, which has some clear (at times perhaps too clear) historical referents, is set in a world where hundreds of years ago the nation of Caeris conquered the neighboring nation of Eren, while much more powerful than either of them is the empire of Paladis. More recently, about a decade ago, Elanna Valtai’s noble father tried to lead a rebellion to free Eren and bring back the “king in exile,” but his plans were discovered and while he was clever enough so that Caeris had no rock-hard proof, he was exiled to his estate while then five-year-old Elanna was taken hostage by Caeris’ King Antoine. Fast forward to when El is now a smart, beautiful young woman in her teens, having been raised as one of his own by the King (much to his real daughter’s dismay, as evidenced by her hatred of El). When King Antoine dies mysteriously, El is accused of his murder and is forced to flee, which ends up entangling her in her father’s new rebellious plotting, thanks to the fact that she exhibits the ancestral and singular power of the one who can “wake the land.” Romance complicates matters, as the “prince in exile” would seem to be the perfect match for El to cement his position, while the Empire’s ambassador, there to decide whether the Emperor should add his substantial assistance to the rebellion, is a dashing young sorcerer-in-hiding (all magic has long been outlawed on pain of death) to whom El is instantly attracted.

And therein lies wince number one for me. I confess I long ago grew weary of the YA insta-romance (to be fair, this doesn’t just bedevil YA, though it does seem to be more prevalent there). But it’s so ubiquitous that I soldiered on, but the many references to his eyes, the feel of his forearm below his breast, the way he looked at her like nobody else ever had, etc., began to pile up way too frequently for me. The Waking Land is told in first-person POV, and this exacerbated the issue because the voice and what was being voiced was becoming too monotonous.

It isn’t that all Elanna thought of was the dashing young sorcerer, but unfortunately, the other thing she thought of didn’t diminish the monotony all that much, basically being limited to “I hate my father; I don’t want to face my father” and “Do I really have power, and how strong is it, and do I really want to use it?” The annoyance factor of these two thoughts was heightened not just by their constant repetition, but because the reader already knows that a) you’re going to face your father and b) yes, you have power, and yes, you will use it. I felt I was just ping-ponging amongst these three strands, back and forth, back and forth, experiencing an increasingly desperate desire to break out of El’s mind, and while I’m not sure which of the three thoughts strands was the last straw, one of them certainly was. And it wasn’t just the interior monologues; this repetitiveness expressed itself in dialogue as well.

Beyond these issues, the characters felt thin, the world-building too thinly-layered atop history, the relationships a bit too trite at times (the spiteful resentful quasi-sister, the dashing young sorcerer, the sternly distant father, the girl born into her role, etc.), there’s a fair amount of clumsy early exposition (having the character roll her eyes at the being told what she already knows doesn’t negate the clumsiness), El is far too naïve about things even given her youth, there are logistical issues with some scenes, and plausibility issues with others. To be fair, it’s quite possible the clichés or shallow characterization got overturned or deeper in the latter half of the The Waking Land, or maybe the second half is all in someone else’s voice, and if so, I owe the author an apology. But by that halfway point, I’d already been seriously pushing myself along, and finally decided enough was enough. Not recommended.