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whitneymouse's review
adventurous
dark
hopeful
tense
medium-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
**Thank you to the author and Penguin Teen for the ARC of this title. This in no way changed my rating. I also want to thank ReadsWithRachel because she recommended I try this one out**
This book needs more hype and I will not shut up about it. The book follows three characters who are from different realms that are separated by how "good" or "sinful" you are: Paramos, the top realm for the best of the best; Mayana, the middle "good" realm; Malin, the middle "bad" realm; and Narakh, the bottom realm for the worst of the worst. The characters are named Aina, a Malini girl who ascends to Mayana, but wants to go back to Malin to save her mother; Aranel, a Mayana boy who ends up in Malin as a spy; and Meizan, a Malini boy who is separated from his clan. They all end up in a group called the Balancers, who want to equalize all the realms. But who can be trusted and who is telling the truth?
I LOVED this book. The book asks a lot of questions about whether people are born or made "good" or "sinful", what truly is "equal", and what's best for society vs. the individual. The characters are complex and have ever-shifting alliances. There's an implied polyamorous love triangle, as well. The Fantasy elements are well done and thought out. I can't wait for book 2! I am so excited to share this book with my library patrons.
5/5 stars
This book needs more hype and I will not shut up about it. The book follows three characters who are from different realms that are separated by how "good" or "sinful" you are: Paramos, the top realm for the best of the best; Mayana, the middle "good" realm; Malin, the middle "bad" realm; and Narakh, the bottom realm for the worst of the worst. The characters are named Aina, a Malini girl who ascends to Mayana, but wants to go back to Malin to save her mother; Aranel, a Mayana boy who ends up in Malin as a spy; and Meizan, a Malini boy who is separated from his clan. They all end up in a group called the Balancers, who want to equalize all the realms. But who can be trusted and who is telling the truth?
I LOVED this book. The book asks a lot of questions about whether people are born or made "good" or "sinful", what truly is "equal", and what's best for society vs. the individual. The characters are complex and have ever-shifting alliances. There's an implied polyamorous love triangle, as well. The Fantasy elements are well done and thought out. I can't wait for book 2! I am so excited to share this book with my library patrons.
5/5 stars
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gaslighting, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Abandonment, and War
marie_thereadingotter's review
emotional
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
I received this book from NetGalley for review.
It's always a bummer when a book you were looking forward to reading doesn't live up to the hype.
I went into this book with very high expectations. And I wish I hadn't. The themes of this book were very heavy-handed, which makes sense for the target demographic. Kids are less likely to notice nuance. This book also read closer to middle grade than YA in my opinion.
I didn't care for any of the characters. It might have to do with the heavy-handed themes. This is the issue I have with three protagonist books that are set up this way. They are often placed in the archetype roles, and there's not much to expand on: the mouthy one, the rule follower, the angry one.
The setting was the part of this book that I was most interested in, but that can only keep me interested for so long. Neither the plot nor the characters held my interest long enough for this book to become a new favorite. This book deserved better marketing, that's for sure. I think this book does have an audience, it's just not me.
It's always a bummer when a book you were looking forward to reading doesn't live up to the hype.
I went into this book with very high expectations. And I wish I hadn't. The themes of this book were very heavy-handed, which makes sense for the target demographic. Kids are less likely to notice nuance. This book also read closer to middle grade than YA in my opinion.
I didn't care for any of the characters. It might have to do with the heavy-handed themes. This is the issue I have with three protagonist books that are set up this way. They are often placed in the archetype roles, and there's not much to expand on: the mouthy one, the rule follower, the angry one.
The setting was the part of this book that I was most interested in, but that can only keep me interested for so long. Neither the plot nor the characters held my interest long enough for this book to become a new favorite. This book deserved better marketing, that's for sure. I think this book does have an audience, it's just not me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment
Moderate: Religious bigotry
sandradoyle's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
a book far ahead of its time with a stunningly unique world and flawed, realistic characters undercut with fantastic philosophical motivations. i rarely do this so prepare for quite an essay where i delve into precisely why this is a book everyone with any sort of intellectual curiosity and taste needs to read.
i read an early copy a few weeks ago after receiving an arc from a friend who found the parental abandonment themes too much to process due to her personal situation. i am not one for sharing book opinions with strangers or engaging with the book community online but imagine my shock when a popular youtuber i follow (reads with rachel) made a review about this in which she spoke about the “unfair” marketing and lukewarm attention this book is receiving. i rushed to create accounts on goodreads and storygraph to share my thoughts as i want to do my part in helping promote a book that truly stands out amongst its peers.
frankly when i read this book i thought i was looking at the next big thing and i immediately preordered it for all my nieces and nephews. but judging by several comments, it appears that this book is going over several reviewer's heads. i should not have been surprised given we live in the "tiktok generation" where subpar authors such as rebecca yarros, alex aster, and colleen hoover thrive. given the general declining taste of readers in both ya and fantasy i think this book due to its unfortunate timing and position as a ya fantasy will struggle to find its audience. a pity because it truly is ahead of its time and the author is an incredible storyteller.
let me start with trigger warnings since they prompted one reader to put this down: parental abandonment, child suffering and death, religious abuse (nothing is graphic and even the darker themes have been handled quite gracefully)
next is characters because this is where i see the book, understandably, receiving most criticism. many reviewers tend to conflate an unlikeable character with a badly written one which is simply not the case. pity many lack the critical reasoning required to differentiate. some characters are deliberately written to be unlikeable as they represent certain unlikeable archetypes (newflash! assholes and bigots exist in the world). i strongly believe that was what this author attempted and succeeded at.
this book presents three characters of which aranel seems to receive the most hate. as expanded in rachel's video, aranel represents a victim of extreme religious brainwashing who begins to deprogram his harmful thought patterns over the course of this book. his growth is slow paced which i found realistic, along with his initial naive and overtly ideological introspection which seemed deliberately written to induce ire. as someone who grew up surrounded by christian fanatics (my parents sent me to conversion therapy as a child) i think the author did a fantastic job in exploring his motivations and the enormous pressure placed upon a young man trying to make sense of truth from propaganda. he makes mistakes repeatedly and you can see his faith wavering. he ends the book lost, confused, and regretting his choices.
while many surface-level readers may dismiss this as a failure in “positive” character growth it is very realistic for someone experiencing his kind of deconstructive journey. i found myself both despising him as a character and simultaneously being enthralled by him as a literary device, a reaction i last had when i read brady's character in stephen king's mr. mercedes. i do wonder if this book represents the beginning of aranel's redemption or his villainy. the author certainly has the skill to take it either way and it is a pity more readers do not recognize this for what it is. i suspect they have, like aranel, been conditioned by their own scriptures (an endless swell of mediocre ya fantasy) to think a certain character archetype (trope-laden with rapid, unearned growth) is “good” and any departure from this is “bad”.
for aina, i also expect disappointment as her character arc ended right at what i assume is its lowest point. typically ya characters face their low point at the middle and then rise up in the climax. aina however steadily declines and serves as a tragic character in how a repeated cycle of broken trust and betrayal drains her of her spark over the course of the book. again i do not think this is a weakness in the writing but the author’s decision to overturn the strong female trope and allow aina to be perceived as “weak” and “struggling” which is not a bad thing. i have grown quite fatigued of the “strong female character” trope because it always rewards a surface-level kind of sudden, unearned strength without taking time to explore the emotional turmoil that lead to this. i find it refreshing to engage with a character who is allowed to be miserable and depressed instead of recovering immediately from their hurts. that all being said i do hope aina will be written to overcome this period of mental decline and regain her spark in latter books because i did find myself quite heartbroken seeing how an innocent, young girl was ruined by circumstance.
i have the least to say about meizan. he read very “typical ya bad boy with a soft heart underneath” so i expect him to be more liked than the other two. unfortunate but indicative of the poor critical reasoning that exists within ya reviewers. meizan also does not make as many mistakes or poor decisions as aina and aranel, so from the perspective of a believable teenage character, i find him inferior to them. he presents as an idealized version of what readers want to see in ya fantasy and that is a pity. i wish the author had taken a risk with him as she did with the other two and delved deeper into his evil side.
next we come to worldbuilding and magic system, both of which were interwoven so perfectly into the narrative and character motivation in a manner i have only seen in seasoned authors like brandon sanderson and nk jemisin. while both aspects were extremely dense and intricate, i did not find them confusing. however i say this as an avid sanderson and jemisin fan, and a point of criticism for this book is that it might be too challenging for children who are not already accustomed to reading above their level (my twelve-year-old niece loves mistborn so she will probably be fine). while rule-based magic systems and history-rich worldbuilding does by its nature require an amount of exposition and information-dumping that no fantasy author i have read till date has been able to avoid entirely, i think this book falls well within the acceptable limit. it does an intelligent job of providing the information in a way that is both digestible and engaging and the seems very deliberate in its decisions regarding what tidbits to introduce when and where.
it is refreshing to see that many reviewers decided to persevere with the book despite their trouble wrapping their head around the concepts early on. everyone has their own reading comprehension level and another criticism is that this book caters almost exclusively to those on the upper end. i wish the author had found a way to make things more widely accessible. but having read the book, i cannot think of any constructive criticism or specific feedback as to how this would be possible given the sheer scale and depth of what she has written.
execution aside and coming to content, both world and magic were unlike any i had ever read before. from my dabbling in world religion, i see strong connections with buddhism and karma, but the author has put an interesting scientific twist on it. i do wonder if this book will anger religious purists. there seems to be a message here about religious misinterpretation but it is not yet clear what the author's stance is. i look forward to seeing how this unravels in future books.
at last we come to romance which seems to be the main attractor of many in the ya fantasy genre. it was minimal, which i appreciated. there was an understated slow-burn, which i also appreciated. there was at least one queer character, although it is unclear what the sexual orientations of the other two are. i enjoyed it overall but one aspect that left me frustrated is not being able to grasp which pairing the author intends to develop going into book two. while one pairing dropped more hints than the other two, there was not a single explicitly reciprocated romance so it seems as if anything is possible at this point. even polyamory is not out of the question. i did love the buildup, but i am reluctant to emotionally invest into a pairing that is not guaranteed to come to fruition. from a platonic standpoint however the relationships are excellent and i laughed out loud during some of the banter.
well that is all from me folks. thank you for coming to my tedtalk and please check out read with rachel's video of this as she does a better job talking about the character work and themes than i do.
i read an early copy a few weeks ago after receiving an arc from a friend who found the parental abandonment themes too much to process due to her personal situation. i am not one for sharing book opinions with strangers or engaging with the book community online but imagine my shock when a popular youtuber i follow (reads with rachel) made a review about this in which she spoke about the “unfair” marketing and lukewarm attention this book is receiving. i rushed to create accounts on goodreads and storygraph to share my thoughts as i want to do my part in helping promote a book that truly stands out amongst its peers.
frankly when i read this book i thought i was looking at the next big thing and i immediately preordered it for all my nieces and nephews. but judging by several comments, it appears that this book is going over several reviewer's heads. i should not have been surprised given we live in the "tiktok generation" where subpar authors such as rebecca yarros, alex aster, and colleen hoover thrive. given the general declining taste of readers in both ya and fantasy i think this book due to its unfortunate timing and position as a ya fantasy will struggle to find its audience. a pity because it truly is ahead of its time and the author is an incredible storyteller.
let me start with trigger warnings since they prompted one reader to put this down: parental abandonment, child suffering and death, religious abuse (nothing is graphic and even the darker themes have been handled quite gracefully)
next is characters because this is where i see the book, understandably, receiving most criticism. many reviewers tend to conflate an unlikeable character with a badly written one which is simply not the case. pity many lack the critical reasoning required to differentiate. some characters are deliberately written to be unlikeable as they represent certain unlikeable archetypes (newflash! assholes and bigots exist in the world). i strongly believe that was what this author attempted and succeeded at.
this book presents three characters of which aranel seems to receive the most hate. as expanded in rachel's video, aranel represents a victim of extreme religious brainwashing who begins to deprogram his harmful thought patterns over the course of this book. his growth is slow paced which i found realistic, along with his initial naive and overtly ideological introspection which seemed deliberately written to induce ire. as someone who grew up surrounded by christian fanatics (my parents sent me to conversion therapy as a child) i think the author did a fantastic job in exploring his motivations and the enormous pressure placed upon a young man trying to make sense of truth from propaganda. he makes mistakes repeatedly and you can see his faith wavering. he ends the book lost, confused, and regretting his choices.
while many surface-level readers may dismiss this as a failure in “positive” character growth it is very realistic for someone experiencing his kind of deconstructive journey. i found myself both despising him as a character and simultaneously being enthralled by him as a literary device, a reaction i last had when i read brady's character in stephen king's mr. mercedes. i do wonder if this book represents the beginning of aranel's redemption or his villainy. the author certainly has the skill to take it either way and it is a pity more readers do not recognize this for what it is. i suspect they have, like aranel, been conditioned by their own scriptures (an endless swell of mediocre ya fantasy) to think a certain character archetype (trope-laden with rapid, unearned growth) is “good” and any departure from this is “bad”.
for aina, i also expect disappointment as her character arc ended right at what i assume is its lowest point. typically ya characters face their low point at the middle and then rise up in the climax. aina however steadily declines and serves as a tragic character in how a repeated cycle of broken trust and betrayal drains her of her spark over the course of the book. again i do not think this is a weakness in the writing but the author’s decision to overturn the strong female trope and allow aina to be perceived as “weak” and “struggling” which is not a bad thing. i have grown quite fatigued of the “strong female character” trope because it always rewards a surface-level kind of sudden, unearned strength without taking time to explore the emotional turmoil that lead to this. i find it refreshing to engage with a character who is allowed to be miserable and depressed instead of recovering immediately from their hurts. that all being said i do hope aina will be written to overcome this period of mental decline and regain her spark in latter books because i did find myself quite heartbroken seeing how an innocent, young girl was ruined by circumstance.
i have the least to say about meizan. he read very “typical ya bad boy with a soft heart underneath” so i expect him to be more liked than the other two. unfortunate but indicative of the poor critical reasoning that exists within ya reviewers. meizan also does not make as many mistakes or poor decisions as aina and aranel, so from the perspective of a believable teenage character, i find him inferior to them. he presents as an idealized version of what readers want to see in ya fantasy and that is a pity. i wish the author had taken a risk with him as she did with the other two and delved deeper into his evil side.
next we come to worldbuilding and magic system, both of which were interwoven so perfectly into the narrative and character motivation in a manner i have only seen in seasoned authors like brandon sanderson and nk jemisin. while both aspects were extremely dense and intricate, i did not find them confusing. however i say this as an avid sanderson and jemisin fan, and a point of criticism for this book is that it might be too challenging for children who are not already accustomed to reading above their level (my twelve-year-old niece loves mistborn so she will probably be fine). while rule-based magic systems and history-rich worldbuilding does by its nature require an amount of exposition and information-dumping that no fantasy author i have read till date has been able to avoid entirely, i think this book falls well within the acceptable limit. it does an intelligent job of providing the information in a way that is both digestible and engaging and the seems very deliberate in its decisions regarding what tidbits to introduce when and where.
it is refreshing to see that many reviewers decided to persevere with the book despite their trouble wrapping their head around the concepts early on. everyone has their own reading comprehension level and another criticism is that this book caters almost exclusively to those on the upper end. i wish the author had found a way to make things more widely accessible. but having read the book, i cannot think of any constructive criticism or specific feedback as to how this would be possible given the sheer scale and depth of what she has written.
execution aside and coming to content, both world and magic were unlike any i had ever read before. from my dabbling in world religion, i see strong connections with buddhism and karma, but the author has put an interesting scientific twist on it. i do wonder if this book will anger religious purists. there seems to be a message here about religious misinterpretation but it is not yet clear what the author's stance is. i look forward to seeing how this unravels in future books.
at last we come to romance which seems to be the main attractor of many in the ya fantasy genre. it was minimal, which i appreciated. there was an understated slow-burn, which i also appreciated. there was at least one queer character, although it is unclear what the sexual orientations of the other two are. i enjoyed it overall but one aspect that left me frustrated is not being able to grasp which pairing the author intends to develop going into book two. while one pairing dropped more hints than the other two, there was not a single explicitly reciprocated romance so it seems as if anything is possible at this point. even polyamory is not out of the question. i did love the buildup, but i am reluctant to emotionally invest into a pairing that is not guaranteed to come to fruition. from a platonic standpoint however the relationships are excellent and i laughed out loud during some of the banter.
well that is all from me folks. thank you for coming to my tedtalk and please check out read with rachel's video of this as she does a better job talking about the character work and themes than i do.
Content Warnings
Minor: Death of parent, Abandonment, Child abuse, Gaslighting, Child death, Racism, and Religious bigotry
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