News Update: One Page at a Time Says that The Labyrinth Wall is an Entertaining & Captivating Read

Review of The Labyrinth Wall (Young Adult Fantasy Novel) from One Page at A Time:

Plot

It's unpredictable and somehow refreshing. The pacing was just okay, bordering slow. It has the right amount of action though so it's not too overwhelming and too boring. I liked how every chapter seems to present a new challenge for Araina and her companions. It made me look forward to what will happen next. However, despite those challenges and adventures, I felt like it lacked the 'amazing' factor. I was entertained but I don't think it got me completely.

World-Building

The idea of a labyrinth isn't completely unique. But the small details and elements were woven together to create a somehow refreshing story. There's still so much to learn about the world they're living in. But since The Labyrinth Wallis the first book in a series, my questions may be answered in the succeeding books. Otherwise, the labyrinth, I think, is a well-created world. It's an interesting puzzle. And I'm looking forward to exploring their world more.

Characters

I liked Araina's character development. It was slow and calculated. But I liked how Araina was able to trust her companion and open up, even if it's just a little.Aside from Araina, I was also intrigued by Korun and Darith. There's still so much to learn about them, as well as the other characters, so I'm looking forward to that.I especially liked how the characters were able to form a bond despite the cruel world they're living in. In a world where trust and friendship are unfamiliar, the characters were able to stick together to overcome the difficulties and challenges.

Writing

I liked the style of writing. The Labyrinth Wall is easy to read. Even though, it's a completely unfamiliar world, the author was able to tell the story without me questioning what was happening. Haha! The flow of events was smooth while maintaining its unpredictability.

Overall, I did enjoy the book. Again, I was not totally wowed but The Labyrinth Wall presented refreshing and interesting things. Would I read the next one? Yes. Maybe in the next ones, the story will pick-up and things will be more exciting.

Nevertheless, The Labyrinth Wall is a good read. More than the adventure, it is a story about trust, relationship and being brave. Bravery in experiencing the unknown, in trying something unfamiliar, in opening up to connect to others.

Biography from Goodreads:

Though she was born in Germany and raised in Turkey until the age of five, Emilyann Girdner spent the majority of her grade school years in Tallahassee, Florida. She discovered early she had a love for stories. Reading books, watching movies and then acting them out with friends or toys gave living an extra flavor. This is likely why she spent the first part of her college career studying Creative Writing, before switching to Graphic Design and then graduating with a BFA in Digital Art from Missouri State University in 2011. Her writing has appeared on websites and blogs including Center for Work Life, Easter Seals Florida, MU Museum of Art & Archaeology’s Musings and Examiner.com. She is best known for her Amazon Best-Selling novel, The Labyrinth Wall. Emilyann is now living and working in Florida.

Given her three focus transitions as an undergraduate, it isn't a shock that she is a multi-medium lover, exploring writing, digital art, photography and design. She finds that her creativity is most fluent when given the opportunity to bounce between artistic outlets.


To truly understand this Author, there are two things to know about her. Emilyann hopes to share a love for others and God in all she does. She believes that imagination sparks beauty in the soul (Source: Goodreads).

Website - Twitter - Goodreads

Review by: Aizel M. (One Page at a Time)

News Update: COOLERBS REVIEWS Comments on The Labyrinth Wall

“I thought of a labyrinth of labyrinths, of one sinuous spreading labyrinth that would encompass the past and the future and in some way involve the stars.” 

-Jorge Luis Borges, The Garden of Forking Paths

I must admit, I love mazes! I adore labyrinths! I crave a well-designed dungeon.

I have since I was a kid.

I grew up on the myths of Theseus and his defeat of the Minotaur, and just the idea of a structure built to confuse and trap stimulated my imagination to no end. And clearly I was not the only one, because popular culture loves to utilize a good labyrinth or maze nowadays. From the third challenge in Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire to the titular location in The Maze Runner, authors love to stick their characters inside these prisons of paths.

Now, I do realize that mazes and labyrinths are different things (only mazes are meant to confuse.) but they both serve as great symbolic locations. Inside a labyrinth, you really have no idea what’s around a corner, and you can’t see where you are in relation to everything else. It’s an effective place for conveying a feeling of loss or uncertainty.

Which of course brings me to this book: The Labyrinth Wall. A book that by its own promotional statement says:

“The Hunger Game’s darkness and chaos meets The Hobbit’s magical charm in The Labyrinth Wall, an Amazon Best-Selling YA Fantasy Novel.”

An apt description really. This novel does feel like a marriage between the dystopian world of The Hunger Games and the adventurous trip that is The Hobbit. But instead of coming off as some kind of hybrid, it utilizes the qualities of the latter to improve the former. Creating a new thing entirely that may, in some ways, even surpass its famous ancestors.

By utilizing the genre of fantasy, instead of the standard dystopian science fiction format, this book skirts around the issue of unrealistic technology. It’s a world of magic, which means it can have a lot more interesting things occur without breaking the suspension of disbelief. This allows the story to have a very natural flow.

In fact, that might be the best aspect of this book: the flow.

It’s really an engaging read, the story has an excitingly fast pace, and really only stops to have character moments when absolutely necessary. The main character is not one to sit around and brood, and when she does think over her feelings on various matters, it’s usually during a dangerous situation. It’s really nice to see a character that is proactive, who continuously goes towards her goals instead of moping around all the time.

Sadly, this is also a bit of a double-edged sword. With so much focus on the continuation of the plot, there’s not enough time or room for any of the supporting cast to get much focus. Outside of the main girl Araina and her rival/mortal enemy Darith, none of the other characters are really given enough time to establish who they are outside of their stereotypical roles.

I think the main reason for this is the fact that the story is told from Araina’s perspective, and without spoiling too much, she is not a big fan of working with others, so we only view them from a distance like she does.

And while that might be an excellent tool for forcing the reader into Araina’s mindset, it did leave me wanting to know more about the other labyrinth dwellers.

Finally, there’s the setting. It’s certainly an interesting one. While reading, I found it more like a traditional dungeon than a labyrinth. Because all the characters already know their way around to a more or less degree, the walls of the labyrinth only seem to exist to force the characters through specific areas and set pieces. This isn’t really a problem though, because the locations they do travel to are quite interesting. My personal favorite being a pit of snakes that you can only cross via a bridge.

And then there’s the mystery of the labyrinth itself.

Despite the events of the story being easy to follow, there’s an aura of secrecy to the whole thing. The book seems to continuously hint at the idea that there is more to the labyrinth than meets the eye. This, I imagine, was done on purpose to make us need to read the sequels. A trick that certainly worked, as I am quite curious to see what the author plans to reveal.

All in all, this book is a delightfully easy read that pulls its audience in, and holds them there with a surprisingly dark tale of danger and mystery. One that, from what I can tell, will only improve with its sequels.

• Personal score: 7 out of 10
• Worth owning: Yes
• Recommended audience: 13 to 18
• Multiple readings: Yes
• Warning: Contains a surprising amount of death. It’s not heavily described, but the actual events are fairly graphic in nature. 

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Read more from Coolerbs at https://www.patreon.com/coolerbs. Thanks for reading!

News Update: The Labyrinth Wall Book Review from Kirstie Chan

Another Review is in for The Labyrinth Wall:


4/5 Star Rating!

The story of The Labyrinth Wall is very captivating and sucks you into the world of Creators and the Mahk, a race of people made by these Creators. We get inside the mind of an unique Mahk and her journey inside this 'Labyrinth' and the struggles the Mahk people face inside this maze not only against the Creators, but amongst each other and natural forces. 

The world that Emilyann Girdner created is very in-depth and at times it can be really confusing to read. We get taken into something very complicated right away which made the book a bit hard to follow and understand. As you keep reading, it gets even harder to remember the different names of Creators and each purpose they serve. I found myself a bit lost in the beginning which made it hard to continue reading. The book was still interesting enough for me to continue and I found myself unable to stop, especially during the greater portion of the middle to the end of the book. A lot of action occurs at the end of the book and was also a bit confusing. There was so much going on it was hard to keep up with. However, the very end of the book definitely makes readers want more! I know she has a draft of the sequel in works and I can't wait to read the finished product.



This book is a bit graphic in terms of violence and death and it also touches on darker themes such as cannibalism and dehumanization and is much darker than other Young Adult novels I have read. If you aren't sensitive to such themes, then I would suggest giving this book a read.

See it on Goodreads:


https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1206459254

News Update: Book Review from Oh My Bookness

A New Oh My Bookness The Labyrinth Wall Review...

Review by: Brittany Perez (Oh My Bookness)
@ohmybookness

The Labyrinth Wall

The characters that you meet on the journey through  the labyrinth is various fights against the guards to keep them from leaving, the cannibals and something out of the Stone Age........SABER TOOTH DOGS ( Oh yeah I went there, or I should say they went there. I like to know where to where they pulled that stone aged beast out of, maybe a little black magic had a helping hand!). It's a fight for SURVIVAL! It's a crude adventure that makes you believe your out while your still in. It's a survival, it's a fight for survival, it's a adventure of life and death.....

The Labyrinth Wall is filled with suspense and excitement, it's a addictive fun read. Combining fantasy, adventure, magic, strange beings, beings that just seem real enough as they can come off the page. It has that mix of the The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien with James Dashner's Maze Runner. Beings and magic you see in the Lord Of The Rings with magic and Maze Runner being kept captive being told it's for your safety than being stacked by the same people who put you in. This dystopian novel will not release you from its grasp up until the very end. Even when you think........................you're already out......




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News Update: The Labyrinth Wall Review... More like Maze Runner than Hunger Games

A thoughtful reader review sample for The Labyrinth Wall from Faith and Film...

The Labyrinth Wall (Obsidian Series Book 1), By: Emilyann Girdner - A Luminous Words Press Publication (2013)

Until I received an email from the author’s publicist, I had not heard of Emilyann Girdner or The Labyrinth Wall. But the offer of a free book piqued my interest. Reading the book description and several reader reviews heightened my curiosity and I felt compelled to enter this labyrinth.

The first chapter places the reader inside the labyrinth and introduces us to the protagonist, Araina, a teenage girl who’s only been alive two years. She’s a Mahk. This strange land has two types of people: the Creators, who live in the castle in apparent luxury, and led by the villainous Simul, and the Mahks, who live in the labyrinth. Their life is hard. Survival is the goal. Trust is absent. Hope is unknown.

One day Araina is defending her life in a fight with Darith, another Mahk, when they see a strange man emerge from the labyrinth wall. Determined to find out who this man is, especially since he seems to have the power to heal, these two form an unlikely alliance and embark on their quest.

Girdner fills the book with adventure after adventure, with a fast-pace that keeps the reader engaged. From Simul’s castle to the blood caves and onto the pit of snakes, the journey carries Araina into numerous dangers from magical attacks by the labyrinth itself to various creatures, such as saber toothed mutts and cannibals.

 Despite the thrills of the quest, there are some problems with the book. Perhaps it is the pace of the plot, but the characters seem superficial. They could have been developed more. Without much history, the Mahks have little back story and we find out scant information about them. Even the villains remain distant, mysterious...

 

Visit Faith and Film for the full review.

Grab your copy of The Labyrinth Wall today.