Clare is a conflicted high school senior who escapes her life through daydreams and her live-action role-playing campaign called Sun Age. With adulthood just around the corner, Clare doesn’t know what to do and hopes life will hand her a future. But her lack of hope could have a more devastating effect than she knows on her world and other worlds outside of her own.
While out in the park during her campaign in full medieval ranger costume, Clare wishes more than ever that she could have the power to understand her future and accidently falls into a magical world called Revary. It is being destroyed from the inside out by a mysterious corruption and decay that dements the people and causes their world to vanish and rot.
Clare learns that only a person from her world, Earth, can save the strange world by using her imagination and fulfilling plans for a brighter future—creating Revary through hope and dreams. Realizing she must name her own future to save them, Clare takes up the task of traveling back and forth between worlds to save the magic.
Encountering everything from orcish centaurs and black witches to jewel-seeking sky pirates and obnoxious oracles, Clare and her friends use fantasy-gaming knowledge to save Earth and Revary, realizing they are all a part of a single story within a story.
Revary by Abigail Linhardt is a fantasy LitRPG novel about a young girl faced with the realities of life staring her in the face. She’s 18 years old. In a matter of months, she’s going to be graduating from high school, faced with a choice of going to college or taking a different path, and the devastating loss of the park where she and her friends have done their LARPing since they created their game Sun Age. Clare isn’t ready for the changes that are coming, but what she isn’t expecting is to find herself transported to another world of where her help is needed if the beings there are to have any hope of survival. A darkness is spreading and destroying all that it touches. The inhabitants need Clare’s help as one such as herself was foretold. Can she help them? Or will she fail and all be lost? Revary is the first book that I have read by Abigail Linhardt and for the most part, I enjoyed this book. While I am an avid reader of fantasy novels, I don’t read that many LitRPG novels, but I have to say that I enjoyed this book overall. The author starts the story off in the real world, but in a computer game initially. I initially thought the game was the actual fantasy world, so when it transitioned quickly to real life I was a bit disappointed, but I kept reading. I found the comradery between Clare and friends to be appealing. I liked how they seemed to be such good friends. While the transitions between Clare being in the real world and the fantasy realm are quick, they left me confused a bit. For me, I like the fantasy world the best. The variety of characters and creatures that the author gives the reader are fascinating. The fantasy world is broken up into several realms, but they are all facing the same fate. I enjoyed this book quite a bit but there are some points in it that I am disappointed with. I understand that Clare is a teenager, but there are a couple of moments of where I felt that she was a bit too juvenile or sensitive about certain situations. At the dinner with her parents at her father’s boss’s house, I felt that she was overreacting to the situation. At the park, when she was with her friends and she just took off from the group…why didn’t at least one person go after her? It didn’t make sense especially when they had been told not to go off alone, and then it took them hours to find her. This is an enjoyable story, but of course not without its flaws. I enjoyed the different characters, and how some, even in the human realm, are more than they appear. I do appreciate how the author pushes Clare to make a choice though because that was essentially her biggest problem…deciding what path she would take in life. Full of a variety of characters, this book gives the reader adventure, danger, and a storyline that crosses back and forth between a fantasy world and reality. I am rating this book 4.5 out of 5 stars.
This book reminded me a lot of an updated version of The Neverending Story. Definitely a great YA adventure. A group of teens have to face what the future holds after high school. It takes escaping to another world to learn the lesson.
Revary is a fantasy novel that I just couldn’t put down. During this global pandemic, it was my gateway into another world. Although, I’m at home I was able to easily dive into the fantasy realm that consists of my favorite mystical creatures such as elves, fairies, and centaurs. I could really connect with this novel because of the main character Clare. Much like Clare, I’m often told that at a certain age you should just let go of the childlike things you love and focus on reality, but reality sucks! For a long time, all Clare had was a game she and her friends played called Sun Age, but eventually, she discovered a realm even greater. A realm where she wasn’t judged for being an eighteen-year-old high school senior who’s in love with RPG games. In this realm, she was more than Clare she was the savior of their lands and sometimes that meant more to her than who she was on earth. I loved that Clare battled dragons and other enemies, but her biggest battle was figuring out what she wanted to do with her life after high school. I loved that she dreamt of being able to continue to pursue her fantasy activities while being an adult. Many people believe that certain things should have an age limit and that somethings people will eventually just grow out of. For some people, those things they will never grow out of.
The way Revary was described in the book made me really feel like I was there witnessing all of the action with the characters. My favorite part of the book was when Clare first discovered the realm in the middle of Sun Age. To others, she sounded crazy but, it was the best power she had ever possessed. I grew to love Clare more when she decided to create her own path of life instead of the one that everyone follows which is going to college, getting a job, getting married, and having kids. That’s all fine and dandy, but she didn’t feel the need to do that when she could just go to her happily-ever-after. Clare could’ve kept the great secret to herself, but she decided to share it with her friends. Their bond is very unique and it was because of Sun Age. Her friends also feared that their days of dressing up, camping, and throwing mid-evil gatherings would come to an end just like their friendship. Clare was the glue that kept everything together.
If you love magic, gaming, and adventures, you will love this novel. You can really escape in the pages for days, plus there are a lot of plots and twists that will keep you on your toes. I had no idea what would happen next or how the story would eventually play out. It’s a pure adventure. I was able to meet the author of this novel at the Findlay Book Fair in 2019 where I purchased this paperback novel. I was able to learn a lot more about the making of this novel and the inspiration for its development, which is what persuaded me to buy a copy. I have a signed paperback copy of Revary as well as an adventure kit that I won in her drawing.
I probably would not have chosen this book if I hadn't been following the PopSugar 2019 Challenge but I was a huge fan of Ready Player One so was looking forward to trying another LitRPG read. I enjoyed the start of Revary but struggled through the middle. Thank goodness it all came good in the end to be an okay read. 3-stars