Book Review: Initiate by Tara Maya

The initiation ceremony is the gateway to ultimate power...or death. 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 a free copy of this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review*
For me, this was the worst book I've read this year. The plot, the characters, the writing, EVERYTHING was wrong with this book. I really hated this one.

Dindi is the most useless excuse for a girl that I've ever seen. She is supposed to be 14 but doesn't seem older than about two. She is stupid, useless, and has the common sense of a blade of grass. She spends all her time dancing with the fae and shirking her chores and this causes chaos everywhere she goes. She screws up the simple act of washing her face, screws up the Initiation kidnap for everyone and makes a mess of everything she says and does. I was hoping that somebody would just kill her as becoming a Happy Meal for her tribe would have given her a use at last! The second story arc following the clan exile is no more interesting.

The book is over-descriptive to excess. We get every detail of Dindi's chores, the village, the market place, Dindi's home, the Initiation, the trek etc and it was far too much for me. I don't need to know the colour and shape of everything. Yet the author did not feel the need to explain the important things. She gives names to things ie '..a kraal at the bottom of the hill held aurochsen and horses'...yet does not think to tell the reader what an aurochsen is! The info dumps are long and complicated with words you don't get given the meaning for which leads to a boring and confusing narrative. There were so many tribes and factions each with different names and traits that it leads to more confusion, especially when the story keeps jumping between them all the time. I was totally lost and could not keep track of who was who, and it got to the stage that I didn't actually care anymore.

It was with a great sense of relief that I decided to give up on this book halfway through and move on to something better.