Short and...and something. [The Rite of Wands by Mackenzie Flohr]

One boy…one Rite… And a world of deadly secrets that could change the course of history—forever. And so begins the tale of Mierta McKinnon. When a horrible fate reveals itself during his Rite of Wands ceremony, he must find a way to change not only his destiny but also the land of Iverna’s. Forbidden from revealing the future he foresees to anyone, he is granted a wand and his magical powers, but still must master the realm of magic in order to save himself and those he loves. But Mierta is not the only one with secrets…especially when it’s impossible to know who to trust.

And this will have spoilage, so be warned.

My read of Mackenzie Flohr's The Rite of Wands was going relatively well. Coming-of-age stories, magical secrets, prophecies, I was into it. I was thinking 4 stars. But then we got to the point where the 14 year old's breasts were described in excessive detail and the whole experience started to sour. And do let us consider this book through its female characters. We have two dead mothers, both magical, a gossipy librarian whose brief appearance reveals she knows more than she lets out, a wet nurse, and finally the primary female character, Anya.

Anya's first appearance is at a jousting competition where she's revealed to be the same age as her betrothed, so assuming I read right, she's 14 years old. Her beauty entraps everyone. At 14 years of age she embodies the role of the seductress, the enchantress who uses her body and feminine wiles for power. And obviously there's a history of young women, young female children, being married off in their early teens, so this is not something that's without base. Doesn't mean I enjoyed it. Doesn't mean I enjoyed her would-be father-in-law describing that he might have taken her for himself. So that was the first point I really deducted.

The other point deductions came from the general trash character of the would be protagonist. From the description of the book we get the sense that our protagonist is Mierta and that we should root for him and his tale. But subjectively it felts like our protagonist was Orlynd, possibly the most likable character in a line-up of trash people. For some reason the lone accented character, a loosely Scottish accent at that, Orlynd starts a shy boy lacking confidence in his magical abilities, over time learning to assert himself. But we can't ignore his indignation at the blow back to his familial reputation in the context of this father's involvement in some massive genocide that is alluded to but never detail throughout the book. Deor, the prince who becomes king, somehow does a 180 from scheming little brat to naive and loyal friend. Anya, navigating the realms of power by using her femininity and the role supposed on her, is in actuality likely the most logical, empowered, and empowering character of the bunch.

Bur Mierta is high trash. Apparently his childhood ambitions to avoid the future he saw and save everyone from the foreseen plague meant he became a scheming, morally corrupt, tyrannical sadist? We saw that he was a spoiled brat when he was 12, throwing a fit when his father, the court physician, was called to attend to someone. Throwing fits when he felt entitled to things, belittling the family servant in his attempts to help the young boy - a lot of subtle examples were left to cement a trash young character being a trash young character. But the jump felt weird.

The setting is interesting too. This is a world where magic and dragons exist but also prayer, God, and the Vatican. Everything's a loose amalgamation paralleling Western Europe. I wish we'd gotten more on that. What I did like was the jumping between present and past via visions and premonitions. It was a solid tool for exposition. The length of the book was good too. My eBook clocked in at a little over 200 pages.

This is the first book of a series and while I have general interest in seeing where the books goes I don't know that this book lived up to my expectations. The story wasn't as bad as it might seem I'm making it out to be. If someone's looking for a quick fantasy read, depending on their tastes I might suggest this to them. On the other hand the story was kind of generic and it didn't really stand out. I'd love to give this 2.5 stars, but I think because of how quick the story was and how attached I grew to Orlynd I'll give this 3 stars.