Tournament of Losers by megan Derr

Tournament of Losers by Megan Derr
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3 stars of 5 rating

All Rath wants is a quiet, peaceful life. Unfortunately, his father brings him too much trouble—and too many debts to pay—for that to ever be possible. When the local crime lord drags Rath out of bed and tells him he has three days to pay his father's latest debt, Rath doesn't know what to do. There's no way to come up with so much money in so little time.
Then a friend poses an idea just ridiculous enough to work: enter the Tournament of Losers, where every seventy-five years, peasants compete for the chance to marry into the noble and royal houses. All competitors are given a stipend to live on for the duration of the tournament—funds enough to cover his father's debt.

Rath is a pretty typical anti-hero-but-really-a-hero-in-his-heart. Rath is an ok character and we get a few developing moments with Rath, but overall I wouldn’t call this a story with much focus on characters but rather on driving the story forward.
Raths’s challenges in this story during the Tournament are quite similar what you may have heard in fairy tales. The peasant competes with other competitors (usually his brothers) and somehow alaways manage to take the prize. All in all the story isn’t very deep, whether in intrigue or with its character. That however doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy this read.

While the characters are many and we get to see situations with both Rath and Tress and their interaction with each other. I would have even loved this story more if the other characters in this story would get more time with our main character Rath. Some of them like Toph or Kelni or Warf. We just get an small insight to these people and their motive for being in tournament. And while I don’t want their whole life story I wouldn’t have minded to more dialogue or interaction between these people. As it stands we just have our main character interacting with a whole lot of other characters but very few involved in the story as a whole.

And while it seems like I didn’t like this book, I DID enjoy it. It is a nice short story with an likable character, but I do feel (like with all stories) it has its flaws and while I wish it could have been better it was still an enjoyment read.
I wouldn’t recommend this to any hardcore fantasy nerd, those who enjoy a lot of world building and a gritty look of the world. A lighthearted fairy tale love story it is something I will recommend for those of us which enjoy a short but easy read.


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