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sumayyaha's review against another edition
2.0
Rating - 2 Stars
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For what it's worth, the writing was beautiful. It was extremely immersive and Brown shows true talent at describing all the cultures surrounding the characters. The mental health of the main character, Malik, was done in an interesting way especially at the end though I can't say I connected with it. Maybe for other sufferers, it was accurate though.
As for the characters...
They were completely lackluster. I wasn't expecting anything from them and yet I was still disappointed. Each character had problems that sound terrible to deal with but for some reason, I just did not care. I wouldn't have cared if the two main characters died by the end, to be honest. I was much more saddened by the death of a side character that was made out to be quite a mean and rude person. And you know, he was mean and needlessly rude but the circumstances he lead his life in demanded that. He seemed like he had more nuance than they gave him credit for and he was forgotten within a page of his death, I found that a mite despicable of the characters. And Karina gave off arrogance in waves, it was, needless to say, very annoying.
And their love? Where did it even come from? How do you go from wanting to slit someone's throat and them wanting to rip out your heart (literally) to selfless sacrifices and thoughts of love. They could've been cutthroat enemies till the end and this book could've been a tome of loss and revenge and I would've liked it more than a fated connection between the two that stops them from doing what they ultimately set out to do from the beginning. They were not the least bit compatible in my eyes, it was random, forced, and weird.
I will not be continuing with this duology.
I had to finish it via audiobook because every time I picked it up, I put it right back down after 20 pages. I do not recommend the audiobook if you can't stand female narrators who do nasally male voices, they sound ridiculous like that and not the least bit convincing I can't take them seriously.
____________________________________
For what it's worth, the writing was beautiful. It was extremely immersive and Brown shows true talent at describing all the cultures surrounding the characters. The mental health of the main character, Malik, was done in an interesting way especially at the end though I can't say I connected with it. Maybe for other sufferers, it was accurate though.
As for the characters...
They were completely lackluster. I wasn't expecting anything from them and yet I was still disappointed. Each character had problems that sound terrible to deal with but for some reason, I just did not care. I wouldn't have cared if the two main characters died by the end, to be honest. I was much more saddened by the death of a side character that was made out to be quite a mean and rude person. And you know, he was mean and needlessly rude but the circumstances he lead his life in demanded that. He seemed like he had more nuance than they gave him credit for and he was forgotten within a page of his death, I found that a mite despicable of the characters. And Karina gave off arrogance in waves, it was, needless to say, very annoying.
And their love? Where did it even come from? How do you go from wanting to slit someone's throat and them wanting to rip out your heart (literally) to selfless sacrifices and thoughts of love. They could've been cutthroat enemies till the end and this book could've been a tome of loss and revenge and I would've liked it more than a fated connection between the two that stops them from doing what they ultimately set out to do from the beginning. They were not the least bit compatible in my eyes, it was random, forced, and weird.
I will not be continuing with this duology.
I had to finish it via audiobook because every time I picked it up, I put it right back down after 20 pages. I do not recommend the audiobook if you can't stand female narrators who do nasally male voices, they sound ridiculous like that and not the least bit convincing I can't take them seriously.
mariahistryingtoread's review against another edition
1.0
Unfortunately, I hated this book. Outside of the world building it was yet another generic YA fantasy I’ve read a dozen times before. The biggest crime being how good storytelling goes out the window in favor of the tepid romance.
From the beginning I merely tolerated Karina. She is the embodiment of the performative feminist archetypes so copious in modern storytelling right now. Sarcastic and abrasive for no reason you’re supposed to like her anyways because she ‘tells it like it is’ and ‘doesn’t care what anybody thinks’ when really she’s just a jerk.
To give you an idea of her character. Early on in the book, Karina gets drunk at an important party and unleashes years of unwarranted bitterness onto a close friend who doesn’t deserve it. She does not apologize for this until over halfway through the book despite him putting his entire professional reputation on the line for her immediately after their fight. Did I mention that she’s known this person over a decade?
To be fair some of her prickliness is justified. Karina was never prepared to be the sultana in the same way as her older sister. Her mother changed overnight after Karina’s father and sister died so it was like Karina actually lost her whole family in one foul swoop.
One of the few things I enjoyed about this book was how present Karina’s grief was. For all her faults, I never doubted that Karina loved her family. Her love informed all of her decisions as a character. That being said, while I sympathized, that was not enough for me to condone her actions. It certainly explained her behavior; it just doesn’t excuse it.
Things would have been different if Karina got better over time.
At first, I assumed hating her would be temporary. I thought her arc would involve growing past her defense mechanisms to not be so emotionally stunted. Nope. Most of the book is Karina pursuing her own needs completely disinterested in the world around her. It is 50% of the way through the book before she even begins to see the injustice in her kingdom.
I don’t mind that she’s insular; I mind that this starts so late in the game that by that point it’s too late to course correct because due to the poor pacing Karina now looks so totally self-involved she can’t see the obvious mistreatment going on under her very nose. Her best friend is a servant girl. Yet, Karina doesn’t know anything about her life at all besides what she, herself, has experienced alongside her. She doesn't care unless it directly affects her. I can somewhat forgive being ignorant. What I can’t forgive is being wilfully ignorant.
This is part of a larger problem of how underdeveloped the characters other than the main two are.
Karina has two ‘close friends’ who disappear for upwards of 80% of the novel, which is still me being generous because really I could count on one hand the amount of interactions each had with her. There’s a brewing political coup, but each council member is the same generic greedy lord stereotype pasted onto several forgettable faces. Malik basically can’t see either of his sisters for plot reasons, so they’re out. In the tournament, he befriends another competitor who he talks to three times before the guy randomly becomes a rival 80% into the book. I’m serious, it is heavily implied if not outright stated that this character does not want to win the tournament then at 83% of the way through Brown suddenly tries to make it into a love triangle. It has no payoff other than an unnecessary twist to force tension because the tournament itself was anticlimactic.
Onto my most hated aspect of the book; the love story. I already mentioned the love triangle. I hate love triangles as I feel my time is being wasted since it is usually telegraphed from the beginning who is going to win. For once, I would have preferred going through the motions over the weirdness that occurred here.
This is marketed as a treacherous star-crossed lovers story rife with betrayal and conspiracy. It has none of these elements. Nothing of narrative significance happens until 50% into the book. This includes the romance that is literally built into the synopsis.
Malik and Karina do not meet until 62% into the novel. When they do it’s this dull Aladdin-esque meet cute that did nothing for me as it was too little too late. It also was heavy on the insta love: a trope I despise even more than love triangles. I found it particularly egregious here as it was arguably the only legitimate obstacle to Malik killing Karina. He had opportunity after opportunity, yet his reasoning became increasingly flimsier every time he failed. Brown didn’t write actual barriers to stop him. The only reason he didn’t try to kill Karina most of the time was from the author stalling.
For instance, Malik does not know she’s the princess upon their first meeting. Karina reveals herself. Malik now has a chance to kill her. He doesn’t do it because ‘oh she’s so different than I expected’. This is after the first meeting in which the two talked for maybe an hour. Insta-love galore.
Malik is often alone with Karina except ‘there are too many people around so I can’t do it then because if the guards or people capture me I can’t get back to the demon to let him know I’ve done what he asked’. This is contradicted when the demon visits Malik to tell him he’s doing a bad job revealing the demon is watching him at all times. Yet, Malik still acts as if he can’t kill Karina in front of people. I don’t know about you, but if my brother was at risk, I don’t care if I get executed or jailed for it I’m going to do what needs to be done.
I’ve talked a lot about how I didn’t like Karina. You might be thinking I like Malik as a result. I don’t. I found Malik insufferable, too. The insta love tanks his character most of all. He continuously chooses this girl he’s known for altogether, like 24 hours over his SIX YEAR OLD sister, whom he arguably caused to be stolen away. I hated him for that alone.
To top it off, Karina is a physical manifestation of the oppression of Malik’s people, yet he falls for her instantaneously. I’m so tired of colonizer/colonized love stories like this that don’t put in the work. There is no way that any character should start having feelings for a person who, from their perspective, actively contributed to their peoples’ subjugation before the person in power has expressed their allyship; basically if Karina has not indicated that she cares about the Eshran then Malik shouldn’t be thinking about her favorably until she does. Period. It can even be a small gesture. Just as long as he has some reason other than ‘oh she’s so nice!’ to think that she might not be all she appears. I’m tired of seeing stories where the characters fall in love while the colonized character is still being dehumanized.
I appreciated that Brown put such a focus on Malik’s mental health. Initially, I really liked Malik as I identified a lot with his negative thought patterns. I suffer from anxiety as well so I found his low level panic at all times super relatable. Where he lost me is that, like Karina, he never had to grow. Anxiety can be seriously debilitating and it’s different for everybody. But, it is up to the individual to work on it in order to function. Malik remains barely above functioning a majority of this book. It became exhausting to read. I don’t expect him to be perfect or anything. He’s always going to have mental health issues. I do, however, expect him to take accountability for how he handles his mental health. I felt like most of this was allowing Malik to wallow in his problems rather than learn how to combat it.
It’s great to see that boys’ mental health, particularly that of a Black boys’, be featured prominently. I just took issue with him not actively taking steps toward getting better. In the end he’s only able to conquer it because the author needed him to in order to make the story go in the direction she wanted. It wasn’t earned.
Late in the book there's a party Malik attends as a competitor in the tournament. His older sister Leila confronts him about reveling in his newfound status as a champion while their younger sister is trapped. Malik then admits he did have an opportunity to end the whole charade but couldn't do it. She absolutely destroys him. Totally lays into him about being an unreliable coward like their father. I don't think I was supposed to agree but I did anyway. This was 60% of the way into the book. Of course I agreed. Malik was wasting time. He didn't even have any tangible plans to kill her aside from 'maybe we'll happen to be in the same place and I can do it then'. And what does Malik do after she goes in on him? Well, first he throws himself a pity party. Then, he goes on to fumble the bag immediately afterwards.
It became abundantly clear that the author was manufacturing cheap hurdles in a poor attempt to obfuscate how easy it would be to kill this girl.
The fact that he only seriously tried one time made Malik seem spineless, lacking in integrity and selfish. I knew falling in love would influence their choices but it really only affected Malik. Karina's love for him was way less believable to me especially given the love triangle out of nowhere, but at least she was committed to her cause. It was unbearable to listen to his self flagellation when it was all his fault that he couldn't do it. I know that it is hard to get out of that defeatist mindset. I have years of intimate experience. I know that taking a life is nothing to sneeze at. Nevertheless, Malik's POV chapters quickly became like listening to that one friend who doesn't actually want anything to improve, they just want validation for feeling bad. This book would have been much better if Malik's inability to kill Karina stemmed primarily from external forces.
Solstasia was little more than background noise. The challenges in the tournament were simplistic not involving a lot of cleverness or effort.
This extends to Solstasia as a whole. It’s described as this massive festival only occurring every fifty years, taking a week to celebrate in its entirety. It is never truly explored. The tournament is the center of everything so it makes sense that a majority of the book focuses on it. That does not excuse only detailing one other event outside of the main tournament. It left the whole festival feeling boring and inconsequential. Plus the backbone of the kingdom - especially during Solstasia which brings in thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people to celebrate - is apparently underpaid Eshran. Wouldn’t it have made sense for Karina to venture out and witness their mistreatment firsthand while the festivities were going on?
To put it plainly, this book does not begin until after 50% of the way in. None of the storylines start to actually go anywhere until then. It means half the book is white noise. Malik and Karina haven’t met yet so there’s no flirty banter. The corruption in Karina’s cabinet isn’t even hinted at until then so there’s little intrigue. Malik doesn’t start to go in depth as to how Eshran are oppressed until a party that happens approximately at the halfway point not only heightening the romanticization of colonization vibes I got from the romance but exposing how surface level the social issues aspect was.
And it’d be so easy to fix. The book just needed to set it up so it’s more of a secret who the competitors are. Have it so Karina and the competitors are not allowed to see the faces of one another until the final challenge. It’s already established Karina sneaks out of the castle all the time. So have Karina sneaking out every night, instead of just the one time, to obtain more information about how to resurrect her mother. Have Malik also sneaking out to practice magic (Malik does magic, this is revealed early enough and is insignificant enough I don’t feel it’s a spoiler) or to look for information on the demon who kidnapped his sister. The two meet and over the course of the novel they grow closer at night without even knowing it. Karina’s eyes can be opened to the failings of her mothers’ leadership shaping her own path. Malik is now a sympathetic character as he’s not putting his sisters’ life at risk for a girl he just met. Then there’s tension during the day as the two could hate each others’ guts plus need to keep distance anyways since the point is to kill one another. Malik would actually despise the princess for her complicity in Eshran suffering. Karina would simply match his energy. As she becomes more socially aware the tension during the day would lessen. Malik would start to see a new side of the princess creating an actual reason for his misgivings about killing her. Imagine a love square unknowingly featuring the same two characters. The tension would be magnificent.
There is also this part at the end in regards to consent that bothers me. The champion wins and is crowned like Karina wants. The marriage has to be consummated so Karina and this person have sex. Karina does this despite not being sure if she is going to kill them the next day. So we have Karina technically having sex with someone under false pretenses. It felt gross because I’m obviously supposed to like Karina, and this isn’t framed as wrong for her to do exactly. You’re supposed to feel for her having to make this ‘sacrifice’. Maybe if I liked Karina, I would feel that way. But, I don’t so it didn’t sit right with me. The other person would never have consented under those circumstances obviously and it’s totally glossed over. Like it’s not even a big deal that she did all this with the express intent to murder the other person the next day. It’s such a horrible thing to do that makes Karina seem morally bankrupt. It’s not coercion exactly, but it felt on the line for me.
I think that if I understood Karina’s pursuit of the resurrection spell more I could have been more okay with it. As it was, I found the resurrection plot silly. Rather than step up or take any responsibility Karina decided to defy the laws of reality at the expense of countless others. I know she missed her mom too and didn’t want to lose another person. But, again, because Karina doesn’t care about the people in her kingdom - the ones who are directly harmed by her and her mothers’ decisions - this is just another example to me of her callousness.
This book would’ve put me in a slump if I wasn’t trying to reach a personal goal of Black books read in February. I’d say the world building was pretty good, however, I can’t recommend it on that alone.
From the beginning I merely tolerated Karina. She is the embodiment of the performative feminist archetypes so copious in modern storytelling right now. Sarcastic and abrasive for no reason you’re supposed to like her anyways because she ‘tells it like it is’ and ‘doesn’t care what anybody thinks’ when really she’s just a jerk.
To give you an idea of her character. Early on in the book, Karina gets drunk at an important party and unleashes years of unwarranted bitterness onto a close friend who doesn’t deserve it. She does not apologize for this until over halfway through the book despite him putting his entire professional reputation on the line for her immediately after their fight. Did I mention that she’s known this person over a decade?
To be fair some of her prickliness is justified. Karina was never prepared to be the sultana in the same way as her older sister. Her mother changed overnight after Karina’s father and sister died so it was like Karina actually lost her whole family in one foul swoop.
One of the few things I enjoyed about this book was how present Karina’s grief was. For all her faults, I never doubted that Karina loved her family. Her love informed all of her decisions as a character. That being said, while I sympathized, that was not enough for me to condone her actions. It certainly explained her behavior; it just doesn’t excuse it.
Things would have been different if Karina got better over time.
At first, I assumed hating her would be temporary. I thought her arc would involve growing past her defense mechanisms to not be so emotionally stunted. Nope. Most of the book is Karina pursuing her own needs completely disinterested in the world around her. It is 50% of the way through the book before she even begins to see the injustice in her kingdom.
I don’t mind that she’s insular; I mind that this starts so late in the game that by that point it’s too late to course correct because due to the poor pacing Karina now looks so totally self-involved she can’t see the obvious mistreatment going on under her very nose. Her best friend is a servant girl. Yet, Karina doesn’t know anything about her life at all besides what she, herself, has experienced alongside her. She doesn't care unless it directly affects her. I can somewhat forgive being ignorant. What I can’t forgive is being wilfully ignorant.
This is part of a larger problem of how underdeveloped the characters other than the main two are.
Karina has two ‘close friends’ who disappear for upwards of 80% of the novel, which is still me being generous because really I could count on one hand the amount of interactions each had with her. There’s a brewing political coup, but each council member is the same generic greedy lord stereotype pasted onto several forgettable faces. Malik basically can’t see either of his sisters for plot reasons, so they’re out. In the tournament, he befriends another competitor who he talks to three times before the guy randomly becomes a rival 80% into the book. I’m serious, it is heavily implied if not outright stated that this character does not want to win the tournament then at 83% of the way through Brown suddenly tries to make it into a love triangle. It has no payoff other than an unnecessary twist to force tension because the tournament itself was anticlimactic.
Onto my most hated aspect of the book; the love story. I already mentioned the love triangle. I hate love triangles as I feel my time is being wasted since it is usually telegraphed from the beginning who is going to win. For once, I would have preferred going through the motions over the weirdness that occurred here.
This is marketed as a treacherous star-crossed lovers story rife with betrayal and conspiracy. It has none of these elements. Nothing of narrative significance happens until 50% into the book. This includes the romance that is literally built into the synopsis.
Malik and Karina do not meet until 62% into the novel. When they do it’s this dull Aladdin-esque meet cute that did nothing for me as it was too little too late. It also was heavy on the insta love: a trope I despise even more than love triangles. I found it particularly egregious here as it was arguably the only legitimate obstacle to Malik killing Karina. He had opportunity after opportunity, yet his reasoning became increasingly flimsier every time he failed. Brown didn’t write actual barriers to stop him. The only reason he didn’t try to kill Karina most of the time was from the author stalling.
For instance, Malik does not know she’s the princess upon their first meeting. Karina reveals herself. Malik now has a chance to kill her. He doesn’t do it because ‘oh she’s so different than I expected’. This is after the first meeting in which the two talked for maybe an hour. Insta-love galore.
Malik is often alone with Karina except ‘there are too many people around so I can’t do it then because if the guards or people capture me I can’t get back to the demon to let him know I’ve done what he asked’. This is contradicted when the demon visits Malik to tell him he’s doing a bad job revealing the demon is watching him at all times. Yet, Malik still acts as if he can’t kill Karina in front of people. I don’t know about you, but if my brother was at risk, I don’t care if I get executed or jailed for it I’m going to do what needs to be done.
I’ve talked a lot about how I didn’t like Karina. You might be thinking I like Malik as a result. I don’t. I found Malik insufferable, too. The insta love tanks his character most of all. He continuously chooses this girl he’s known for altogether, like 24 hours over his SIX YEAR OLD sister, whom he arguably caused to be stolen away. I hated him for that alone.
To top it off, Karina is a physical manifestation of the oppression of Malik’s people, yet he falls for her instantaneously. I’m so tired of colonizer/colonized love stories like this that don’t put in the work. There is no way that any character should start having feelings for a person who, from their perspective, actively contributed to their peoples’ subjugation before the person in power has expressed their allyship; basically if Karina has not indicated that she cares about the Eshran then Malik shouldn’t be thinking about her favorably until she does. Period. It can even be a small gesture. Just as long as he has some reason other than ‘oh she’s so nice!’ to think that she might not be all she appears. I’m tired of seeing stories where the characters fall in love while the colonized character is still being dehumanized.
I appreciated that Brown put such a focus on Malik’s mental health. Initially, I really liked Malik as I identified a lot with his negative thought patterns. I suffer from anxiety as well so I found his low level panic at all times super relatable. Where he lost me is that, like Karina, he never had to grow. Anxiety can be seriously debilitating and it’s different for everybody. But, it is up to the individual to work on it in order to function. Malik remains barely above functioning a majority of this book. It became exhausting to read. I don’t expect him to be perfect or anything. He’s always going to have mental health issues. I do, however, expect him to take accountability for how he handles his mental health. I felt like most of this was allowing Malik to wallow in his problems rather than learn how to combat it.
It’s great to see that boys’ mental health, particularly that of a Black boys’, be featured prominently. I just took issue with him not actively taking steps toward getting better. In the end he’s only able to conquer it because the author needed him to in order to make the story go in the direction she wanted. It wasn’t earned.
Late in the book there's a party Malik attends as a competitor in the tournament. His older sister Leila confronts him about reveling in his newfound status as a champion while their younger sister is trapped. Malik then admits he did have an opportunity to end the whole charade but couldn't do it. She absolutely destroys him. Totally lays into him about being an unreliable coward like their father. I don't think I was supposed to agree but I did anyway. This was 60% of the way into the book. Of course I agreed. Malik was wasting time. He didn't even have any tangible plans to kill her aside from 'maybe we'll happen to be in the same place and I can do it then'. And what does Malik do after she goes in on him? Well, first he throws himself a pity party. Then, he goes on to fumble the bag immediately afterwards.
It became abundantly clear that the author was manufacturing cheap hurdles in a poor attempt to obfuscate how easy it would be to kill this girl.
The fact that he only seriously tried one time made Malik seem spineless, lacking in integrity and selfish. I knew falling in love would influence their choices but it really only affected Malik. Karina's love for him was way less believable to me especially given the love triangle out of nowhere, but at least she was committed to her cause. It was unbearable to listen to his self flagellation when it was all his fault that he couldn't do it. I know that it is hard to get out of that defeatist mindset. I have years of intimate experience. I know that taking a life is nothing to sneeze at. Nevertheless, Malik's POV chapters quickly became like listening to that one friend who doesn't actually want anything to improve, they just want validation for feeling bad. This book would have been much better if Malik's inability to kill Karina stemmed primarily from external forces.
Solstasia was little more than background noise. The challenges in the tournament were simplistic not involving a lot of cleverness or effort.
This extends to Solstasia as a whole. It’s described as this massive festival only occurring every fifty years, taking a week to celebrate in its entirety. It is never truly explored. The tournament is the center of everything so it makes sense that a majority of the book focuses on it. That does not excuse only detailing one other event outside of the main tournament. It left the whole festival feeling boring and inconsequential. Plus the backbone of the kingdom - especially during Solstasia which brings in thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people to celebrate - is apparently underpaid Eshran. Wouldn’t it have made sense for Karina to venture out and witness their mistreatment firsthand while the festivities were going on?
To put it plainly, this book does not begin until after 50% of the way in. None of the storylines start to actually go anywhere until then. It means half the book is white noise. Malik and Karina haven’t met yet so there’s no flirty banter. The corruption in Karina’s cabinet isn’t even hinted at until then so there’s little intrigue. Malik doesn’t start to go in depth as to how Eshran are oppressed until a party that happens approximately at the halfway point not only heightening the romanticization of colonization vibes I got from the romance but exposing how surface level the social issues aspect was.
And it’d be so easy to fix. The book just needed to set it up so it’s more of a secret who the competitors are. Have it so Karina and the competitors are not allowed to see the faces of one another until the final challenge. It’s already established Karina sneaks out of the castle all the time. So have Karina sneaking out every night, instead of just the one time, to obtain more information about how to resurrect her mother. Have Malik also sneaking out to practice magic (Malik does magic, this is revealed early enough and is insignificant enough I don’t feel it’s a spoiler) or to look for information on the demon who kidnapped his sister. The two meet and over the course of the novel they grow closer at night without even knowing it. Karina’s eyes can be opened to the failings of her mothers’ leadership shaping her own path. Malik is now a sympathetic character as he’s not putting his sisters’ life at risk for a girl he just met. Then there’s tension during the day as the two could hate each others’ guts plus need to keep distance anyways since the point is to kill one another. Malik would actually despise the princess for her complicity in Eshran suffering. Karina would simply match his energy. As she becomes more socially aware the tension during the day would lessen. Malik would start to see a new side of the princess creating an actual reason for his misgivings about killing her. Imagine a love square unknowingly featuring the same two characters. The tension would be magnificent.
There is also this part at the end in regards to consent that bothers me. The champion wins and is crowned like Karina wants. The marriage has to be consummated so Karina and this person have sex. Karina does this despite not being sure if she is going to kill them the next day. So we have Karina technically having sex with someone under false pretenses. It felt gross because I’m obviously supposed to like Karina, and this isn’t framed as wrong for her to do exactly. You’re supposed to feel for her having to make this ‘sacrifice’. Maybe if I liked Karina, I would feel that way. But, I don’t so it didn’t sit right with me. The other person would never have consented under those circumstances obviously and it’s totally glossed over. Like it’s not even a big deal that she did all this with the express intent to murder the other person the next day. It’s such a horrible thing to do that makes Karina seem morally bankrupt. It’s not coercion exactly, but it felt on the line for me.
Spoiler
Especially since right after this she decides not to go through with it. So she had sex with him for what? Why couldn’t she have decided beforehand? She doesn’t even come clean about the whole plan so she faces no repercussions in the form of the person being upset. She even plans to live out her life now married legitimately to this person. What kind of foundation is this?I think that if I understood Karina’s pursuit of the resurrection spell more I could have been more okay with it. As it was, I found the resurrection plot silly. Rather than step up or take any responsibility Karina decided to defy the laws of reality at the expense of countless others. I know she missed her mom too and didn’t want to lose another person. But, again, because Karina doesn’t care about the people in her kingdom - the ones who are directly harmed by her and her mothers’ decisions - this is just another example to me of her callousness.
This book would’ve put me in a slump if I wasn’t trying to reach a personal goal of Black books read in February. I’d say the world building was pretty good, however, I can’t recommend it on that alone.
mspelbrinkwrites's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Very powerful and delightfully unpredictable!
tchoupie42's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
informative
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
looking4alexis's review against another edition
4.0
loved these characters. very happy there’s a second book!!
therazzmatazz13's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
crilleacreereads's review against another edition
5.0
It only took me this long to finish reading because work got in the way. This was a great book! I now need book 2. Like, now.
fishvet's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
akookieforyou's review against another edition
2.0
*2.75*
My feelings are so mixed, I really liked certain aspects, but I just couldn't quite fall in love with this book. Honestly I'm starting to question whether or not I even enjoy fantasy anymore, everything I pick up is disappointing for one reason or another.
My favorite thing about this book has to be the unique and interesting world, and magic system. Obviously that stems from the fact that the author based this story in west African folklore, which is something I have very little experience with. It was fun to explore something that was so different from what I'm used to. I also found the baseline of the story engaging, plans of murder will always be something that captures my attention.
The characters are where my feelings get dicey. I liked Malik well enough, he was sweet and relatable, and he was the only person I really cared about (plus his magic was the best). However, pretty much everyone else made me feel ambivalent or irritated. Karina being the character that frustrated me the most. She was absolutely horrible to everyone around her, and almost never had reason to be. She even acknowledges how she attacks people whenever she senses weakness. I didn't hate her, but she was so hard to sympathize with, and I just didn't care about her plan. So because of all of that, and other smaller things, I just couldn't rate this book any higher.
My feelings are so mixed, I really liked certain aspects, but I just couldn't quite fall in love with this book. Honestly I'm starting to question whether or not I even enjoy fantasy anymore, everything I pick up is disappointing for one reason or another.
My favorite thing about this book has to be the unique and interesting world, and magic system. Obviously that stems from the fact that the author based this story in west African folklore, which is something I have very little experience with. It was fun to explore something that was so different from what I'm used to. I also found the baseline of the story engaging, plans of murder will always be something that captures my attention.
The characters are where my feelings get dicey. I liked Malik well enough, he was sweet and relatable, and he was the only person I really cared about (plus his magic was the best). However, pretty much everyone else made me feel ambivalent or irritated. Karina being the character that frustrated me the most. She was absolutely horrible to everyone around her, and almost never had reason to be. She even acknowledges how she attacks people whenever she senses weakness. I didn't hate her, but she was so hard to sympathize with, and I just didn't care about her plan