Reviews

Oh how much I wanted to love this book. The premise is so very intriguing, and quite frankly, the cover is STUNNING and so is Touraine. I did go into this with rather high expectations, I admit, simply because this promised to be such a new, unique and highly diverse fantasy epic. I ended up not being in love with "The Unbroken", but I liked it and had a great time with it.

There is a lot to love, after all. The writing and world building are great and the setting new and exciting, and there are a lot of dark aspects of the story and the world that resonate with anyone who takes a closer look at the world we live in. Colonialization is the major theme in "The Unbroken" and it hit hard, never shying away from showing the depth of depravity the colonizers are capable of. The portrayal of the colonizing force, the rebels and the simple folk just trying to live their lives is nuanced, clever and complex. This is supported by the two protagonists, Touraine and Luca. One is a soldier, stolen by the empire and groomed into becoming their perfect soldier, to fight against her own people if need be. The other is the rightful queen of said empire who wants to thwart the rebellion and bring peace to a country in turmoil. Both of them have to unlearn a huge amount of unhealthy behavior and convictions and their character development in this regard is really well done.

I never really got emotionally attached to either of them, though. In hindsight I feel like they are a little one-note. They have their aforementioned struggles, but beyond those there is not much else. I never managed to really picture either of them as fully fleshed out characters. While I did feel a certain connection to both protagonists though, I never really cared for the side characters. There are great ones, no doubt, and they are important to the overall plot too, butthey never clicked for me. Certain character deaths, thus, didn't bother me much. The pacing is rather slow too and at some points I actually found myself skipping a few sentences because I got a little bored.

One big plus is the diversity of this book. It's a queernorm world with lots of queer characters, and the two leading ladies are queer as well (Luca seems to be bisexual, Tourraine seems to be a lesbian). Sadly, the main queer romance between Luca and Touraine fell completely flat for me. There was no actual development, they just suddenly started noticing that the other one is pretty hot. Random characters assume they have a sexual relationship basically on day one, based on... I don't know, Luca's promiscuity? This genuinely left me baffled at times and it felt weird, like these random characters' role was to tell us that there is sexual chemistry because there is not much of it described in the actual scenes between the two. It felt a little tell, don't show. This is, though, the first book in a new series so maybe the next books elaborate more on this relationship and manage to show us the chemistry, especially the romantic one, between the two ladies.

All in all this is a good story and a good first book in a new series, but it doesn't quite live up to its potential. I will still, most likely, read the sequel when it comes out.

Many thanks to Little, Brown Book Club UK and Netgalley for the arc!