Convergence: Book One Of The Blending [Mass Market Paperback]

With that said, The Blending. Where to start? Let's start with the good things.

The characters were very likeable people. Even the villains were likeable in that they were good villains. Everybody gets time to tell his or her piece of the story, so the story isn't limited to the view of only one character (though Tamrissa Domon, Fire magic, is the one writing this).

The magic was very cool. I liked how people didn't necessarily have powers for fighting (say, like in Sailor Moon) but instead commanded the elements to make their lives easier. It was sort of like their version of modern conveniences.

Never once in the story was there a lack of challenges, twists and turns to keep the characters and the reader busy. Most of the main characters have someone coming after them to bring them back to their former lives (poor Lorand. He got gypped there) and they would have to come up with new ways to escape, test their new powers, or test their growth as people. If they'd been a little younger, I'd call it a coming of age story.

I rather like the creation of new names and titles. I think it gives fantasy novels a certain flare to give the characters fantasy vocabulary. I liked Dom and Dama in the place of Mr. And Mrs./Miss. But... there's a character named Hat. I just can't get over that, it makes me scream laughing.

Now the bad. After reading this series, the following words will drive you to murderous rage: Puredan, blond, bathhouse, tea.

I don't mean this as a discrimination against blonds. I like blonds. But this thing is, the five main characters are all blond (yeah, yeah cover picture. Ignore it) and they mention someone's blondness on almost every page of the book. It's like Flowers in the Attic in that way. As for bathhouses and tea, whenever they're sitting around, they're drinking tea. I can think of only one scene in book one that involved booze and frankly it was on of my favorite parts. And they take baths all the time. In detail.

Furthermore, while the characters are likeable, they have a bit of one-dimensional... ness to them. The good guys are almost pure good. They don't have a shred of malice in them, and some of them went through some pretty painful stuff. The villains are all pure evil; the nobility are all peasant-hating, uppity jerks. It's rather stereotypical. Even the romance is a little flat. Tamrissa and Vallant are quite cute together, but you will get to a point where you want them to shut up and stop fighting. Rion and Naran remind me strongly of Fredric Henry and Catherine Barkley in A Farewell to Arms. They don't use each other's names... just "love."

The writing will remind you of a Mary Sue fanfic at times. Like when the same thing happens to all five people in five different chapters. The fireball gets tiring REALLY fast. If you got rid of some of the useless events and dialogue (like the bathhouse scenes... I hate repetition of dialogue), you could have reduced the five books to a trilogy.

All in all, though, the story was cool and not nearly as shallow as it seemed once you discovered the corruption that lies right under the surface of Gan Garee and indeed the whole empire. Book five brings everything to satisfying fruition after endless testing and trials and revelations. It's good, fun, sometimes fluffy reading. If anything, you'll probably keep reading to see people get what's coming to them. I finished the whole series in about a week and a half. If a kid you know is making the transition from young adult to adult books, this would be great for them. I give The Blending four stars.

Anyways, if you like light fantasy, you may enjoy this series (but you may feel a little guilty about doing so!).