Review of Shiva XIV Book

Ayn is very much like any adolescent. He is inquisitive, stubborn, and filled with a multitude of emotions. There’s just one small detail that makes him a bit different than your average kid. For one, he has the form of both male and female. Secondly, he’s supposedly a god reincarnated in the body of a boy to the people of Deius. This story follows Ayn in a series of adventures through and between new worlds.

There are definitely a lot of various characters in this story and all of them unique in their own way. One of these characters being Zin, who is an Orhian prince with certain body qualities of a fish. He is from a planet that favors logic over emotion, but he himself often acts in ways completely void of logic. He is prideful of his emotion and his artistic nature in a way that his parents just don’t seem to understand or know how to deal with. He came across as exceptionally rude, arrogant, and insensitive to anyone else’s feelings which I found ironic.

I have to say that from the very beginning I did not like Meddhi-Lan, Ayn’s teacher and “father figure”. I know I was probably supposed to like him, but he irked me. For a bit there I even suspected him of being the one who set off the events which threw Ayn’s world upside down. One of the main things that triggered my dislike of him was that he seemed to baby Ayn much more than necessary. There were several times where Ayn would act too young for his age and I think it had a lot to do with how Meddhi-Lan coddled him every time he cried. It irritates me when adults underestimate kids and what they are capable of handling. After this I immediately distrusted him because he didn’t seem to trust Ayn with the truth. It always seemed like Meddhi-Lan knew what was going to happen to him, but kept it to himself.

On the other hand, Pei, a Deusian priest who is thrown into adventures of his own throughout the book, is a character that slowly came to grow on me. His character seemed to develop far more than any other character. He goes from being impatient to a brave soul who is able to channel wasted energy towards something productive. Though the story of his love interest was, at times, a frustrating one to endure, it has become my favorite and I’m very interested to see what happens next for him!

I definitely enjoyed how the author built this intriguing world, giving the reader a clear picture of the environment, and while technically there were minor issues in the story that didn’t seem authentic or otherwise didn’t fit, this didn’t get in the way of me enjoying the overall story. This book was definitely unpredictable and left me with a lot of questions. If you are into coming of age tales that take you far beyond your wildest imagination, pick up this book now!

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