Blog Tour: The Trials of Koli by M.R. Carey #bookreview #TheTrialsOfKoli

Beyond the walls of Koli’s small village lies a fearsome landscape filled with choker trees, vicious beasts and shunned men. As an exile, Koli’s been forced to journey out into this mysterious, hostile world. But he heard a story, once. A story about lost London, and the mysterious tech of the Old Times that may still be there. If Koli can find it, there may still be a way for him to redeem himself – by saving what’s left of humankind.

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Hi and welcome to my stop on the blog tour for The Trials of Koli! Huge thanks to Tracy Fenton for the invite and to Orbit for the gorgeous signed limited edition proof that made this little blogger’s heart sing.

The Trials of Koli is the second book in the Rampart Trilogy, and it cannot be read as a standalone, let me tell you that right now. So if you’re new to this trilogy, and The Trials of Koli has sparked your interest, then please start at the beginning with The Book of Koli. Incidentally, the third instalment will be out early next year, so the wait for closure won’t be overly long (is what I keep telling myself). If you liked The Book of Koli, you should definitely read The Trials of Koli, it’s every bit as good, if not better!

As I told you back in April (ICYMI) The Book of Koli was quite literally the book of Koli: a kind of memoir, the story of a teenager in a post-apocalyptic world as seen through his eyes and written down by him. In this second book however, Koli shares the spotlight with Spinner, the girl he was in love with back at Mythen Rood, the childhood home he was forced to leave. This, I’ll admit, was a bit surprising and not entirely to my liking, after all I was here for Koli, not Spinner! But then I remembered I had been wondering how things in Mythen Rood were after Koli had gone, and I realised it was actually very nice to go back there.

So the narrative alternates between Koli and Spinner and every time the POV changed, I got a little cross: more often than not they ended on a cliffhanger and I needed to know what was going to happen next, why why WHY would Mr Carey be so cruel?! It’s effective though, gotta give him that, I simply had to continue reading. And after a few pages I was completely engrossed in the other storyline, therefore every time the switch happened, I got a little cross again. This vicious circle sped me through The Trials of Koli like a choker seed taking root (very VERY quickly).

The one little gripe I had with book 1 was the fact that it’s full of intentional grammatical errors, such as teached, knowed, would / could / should of. I appreciated the reasons why, but it took me a while to get used to and it slowed me down at first. To my utter surprise it didn’t bother me at all in this sequel. I knew it was coming, that’s probably part of the reason it didn’t bother me this time around but there is also less of it as Spinner has had a bit of an education and Koli himself has gained some more book smarts. Again, if you think this may be a problem for you, I totally get that, and I’d suggest you listen to the audiobooks instead. I’ve listened to a sample and it sounds great, so be sure to check that out.

Adventure and survival, deceit and lies, disease and murder, choker trees and sea-bears, it was such a joy to get back on the road (and I use that term loosely) with Koli and to get back to Mythen Rood with Spinner, and find out more about their world. Both on a quest, albeit with very different objectives, and yet a common end goal. I loved every second of it and I’ll be counting down the days until the third and final book.

If you enjoy dystopian tales and you haven’t met Koli, you should definitely give him a chance to conquer your hearts like he did mine. Highly recommended.