The Savior’s Champion

The Savior’s Champion

By Jenna Moreci

 

 

The (a) story introduces us to Tobias Kaya, a young laborer living in an ancient Greece-like fantasy realm that is run by a mysterious, magical figure known only as The Savior. For years The Savior’s magic has purified the land and kept the kingdom’s subjects safe from war and famine. And now, She has come of age to be married—but The Savior cannot marry just anyone. She is destined to marry only the strongest and the bravest of the bunch. In other words, She will marry the winner of the Sovereign’s Tournament: a series of deadly tasks designed specifically to weed out the weak and the unworthy.

Fortunately for him, Tobias doesn’t care about The Savior or Her tournament. All he wants to do is stay home and take care of his mother and his ailing sister. But when his sister’s health suddenly takes a turn for the worse, Tobias can only think of one thing: the large amount of money that is bestowed upon the families of men who enter the tournament.

Now he is trapped inside a dark and dismal labyrinth, forced to complete tasks that grow steadily more dangerous as time goes on—all for the hand of a woman he has absolutely no feelings for. But even the challenges seem to be the least of his worries, as he is ultimately pitted against several other men who would do absolutely anything to rule at The Savior’s side.

And once he meets Leila, a healer within the tournament—and headstrong handmaiden to The Savior—his feelings and motivations become even more unclear…

 

The (A) story is about political and moral corruption. As obviously brutal as the tournament is on its own, things are made even worse by the fact that all the players are essentially in it for themselves. This leads to frequent instances of backstabbing, betrayal, and straight-up murder—and everything is completely legal (or else, overlooked entirely) within the rules of the games. But things get even more dicey for Tobias once it becomes clear that the Sovereign has his own ideas of who should win his daughter’s hand.

But the (A) story is also about forbidden love. This is clearly evidenced through Tobias and Leila’s blossoming relationship as the story moves on. Despite her position within the palace, and despite the fact that his life literally depends on winning another woman’s hand, the two remain drawn to each other throughout even the most challenging of circumstances.

 

I first became aware of Jenna Moreci through her highly popular YouTube channel. Like many other authors utilizing the platform, her videos cover a lot about writerly quirks and publication processes, as well as a ton of insightful advice for crafting stories. But unlike most authors I’ve come across, she does it all with an extremely charming (if in-your-face) attitude and winning personality. She is also, quite clearly, the queen of indie authors, as her writing career is backed by years of experience in business and marketing.

That being said…

Jenna is clearly a skilled writer. Within the first few paragraphs of this book I was hooked. Tension was high; details were graphic, and the story was intriguing. After the opening chapter I was certainly itching for more.

But then the plot went on, and I found myself itching for her to take more of her own advice.

First of all, I found Tobias to be somewhat one-dimensional. Obviously he was crafted to be more than that: his main priority is clearly his family—to the point that he would willingly sacrifice himself for them; he once had a bright future as apprentice to the city’s greatest artist, and he eventually falls into a forbidden romance that will ultimately drive his motivations for the rest of the book. But all these points were kept on a surface level: I never really felt like we were exploring Tobias’s emotions—just his reactions to the world around him.

In hindsight I can’t help but compare Tobias to another character who entered a deadly competition for the sake of the ones she loved: Katniss Everdeen. In many ways their stories are quite similar, though Katniss’s participation in the Hunger Games is much less voluntary. However, we spend a lot of time inside Katniss’s head throughout the book. Almost right from the start we know what she’s afraid of; we know what makes her angry; we know what drives her actions; we know what burdens she is carrying from her past. So once she begins reacting to the world around her, we have a clear sense of why she would react this way. With Tobias, it’s just a pattern of Event, then Reaction, and then it seems to be forgotten until the next inevitable Event.

Once we enter the labyrinth, the characterization becomes even more muddled. For starters, there are twenty men competing for the Savior’s hand, and each one of them has been given a nickname/title based on specific traits they exhibit. In other words, you have forty names to remember—and few have been given a distinguishable personality to attach to them. There are a couple characters that are more memorable than some (my personal favorites being Enzo and Orion), but for the most part they are all foul-mouthed, toxically masculine fighter-types who pretty much blur together until you ultimately give up trying to remember which is which. And coming from an author who has a whole YouTube video covering “Character Voice,” it’s very disheartening to discover nearly all her characters just sound like angsty teenagers.

The only main character that actually seemed to have “character” was Leila. And even then, much of her part in the story is stifled by her romance with Tobias, which is uninteresting at best. Their attraction to each other comes out of nowhere, and much of their scenes together are bogged down by a ton of dialogue that drags on without really adding anything to the story or the characters.

But the thing that gets me most is the Tournament itself. From the beginning it’s advertised as this extremely deadly and dangerous competition that takes place in a dark and grueling labyrinth. Even the tagline for the book is: Respect the Labyrinth. Obey the Labyrinth. But the competitors are in the labyrinth for only the first half of the competition. And even when they are in there, the challenges are disappointingly boring—or so ridiculously over the top that they are less scary and more bordering on laugh out loud funny. Jenna frequently makes it a point in her videos to talk about how she loves violence and gore—but the most imaginative(?) challenge we get from the almighty labyrinth that must be respected (or else!) is… killer teacup pigs.

I’m not even kidding.

As an author, I greatly respect Jenna Moreci for her business sense, her marketing skills, and the many actions she takes to help, not just her fellow authors, but a number of different charities and organizations throughout the year. But as a reader, I have to say that I have no interest in reading any of the sequels to The Savior’s Champion, or even sampling any of her previous novels.

As always, if you’re curious then you should just go ahead and pick up The Savior’s Champion and form your own opinions of it. But, sadly, it is not one I’m going to run out and recommend to my fellow readers.