Title: Koru: The Trainer I Used to Know
By: Katelynn Balcom

 

Genre: Young Adult/Fantasy-Romance

 

Review Rating: 3 ½ Stars out of 5

 

 

When I first started reading, I thought the bookreminded me a little of The PrincessBride.  The similarities are in the bookstructure and roughly in the beginning plot. Koru: The Trainer I Used to Knowis structured as a story within a story—the main character is telling the storyto an in-story audience.

 

The plot is a universal one of boy meets girl, boydoes something stupid, and then boy spends the rest of the story trying to winback the heart of the girl.  Overall, itis well executed.  I feel that it couldhave had more depth in spots.  Also, thesubplots could have used a bit more meat as well.

 

The characters shine in the story.  Gabriel, our POV character, narrates thestory well.  We understand his motivation—asa whole.  This happens to be a placewhere I believe the story needs a bit more. I would have liked to have seen more scenes of him actually falling inlove with Koru.  That mostly happened offthe page.  More sweet scenes between themwould have made me feel his heartbreak when she rejected him in the beginning.

 

Koru, the love interest, has her own agency.  We understand her initial rejection.  She only falters at the end—another placethat needs fleshing.  Koru forgives Gabrielfor all his misguided attempts too easily. Especially after what happened with her own father, her quick forgivingof Gabriel feels out of character.

 

The potential war subplot gets resolved swiftly.  There was a lot of good build-up to it.  Then, it just disappears after one battle.  There should have been another couple ofchapters where the war subplot, the Captain Koru subplot, and the main plotcould have merged.  That would have givensatisfying resolutions to all.

 

I liked the stable setting with the Griffins.  The story felt fresh and yet lived-in.  The caring for these fantasy creatures addeddepth to the characters—main and side.

 

While I found Korua fun read, I also found a smattering of grammatical and punctuation errors.  I have notified the author via email aboutthem.  Since the book is not yet released,she may have time to make corrections.  Thosecombined with the above forced me to take off stars from the rating.  All in all, it is fun fantasy that I wouldrecommend reading.
Pre-order or buy after April 25th: https://www.amazon.com/Koru-Trainer-I-Used-Know-ebook/dp/B0C159D96D/
Find on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/128200209-koru