Reviews with content warning for Rape - The Gilded Ones

Set in West African inspired Otera, Deka has grown up waiting for the purity ritual. When her blood runs gold, she is deemed impure and sentenced to death - however and alternative choice is offered by a mysterious woman. Fight for the emperor or be destroyed.

Absolutely loved this book, very emotionally involved and moved by the story. Knocked 0.5 star off because I felt the beginning set-up and world building was very rushed and too much information presented too quickly.

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deb_prosp's review against another edition

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adventurous dark inspiring mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

While Forna's prose is clunky and cliché at times (cue multiple mentions of "tears welled up in/ burned/ pricked my eyes"), the plot itself feels groundbreaking in its diverse cast of characters and rapid world-building. 'The Gilded Ones' was a solid page turner that sat comfortably in my thoughts once finished. I would not object to reading the sequel.

Quite an enjoyable and relaxing read despite the darkly graphic and violent content.

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yulecogs's review against another edition

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2.25

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litbrett's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful mysterious fast-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

4.5

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library_kb's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

I really enjoyed the worldbuilding of this book. Plus it had a satisfying conclusion, despite being the first book in a series, but still enough interest in what might happen next. The one thing that I would have liked more was character development, especially of the side characters--I really didn't buy the relationship between Deka and Keitu because it felt very rushed...but if the next book has more development here, I'll be excited!

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kyannarichard's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective 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

4.75

It took me a bit to really gravitate to the book. But it was so good from the beginning.

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bookforthought's review

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adventurous challenging dark fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

A powerful story about a group of young women made to believe their golden blood and superior abilities mark them as demons. As they are made to choose between certain death and fighting in an army to protect the empire from monsters, hard truths will come to light and the biggest question of all: who is the real monster?

The cast is lovely and diverse and I loved Deka as the main character. It was refreshing to have a complex, three-dimensional black female main character for once! The female friendships in this were also gorgeous. I also enjoyed the worldbuilding and the internal mythology but my main issue with this book was that there was much too telling and not enough showing. There were a lot of very important underlying themes which definitely make this a valuable read, but my enjoyment of it really took a hit because of the way this story was told.

I quite struggled to connect with the writing style, which while easy to read was at times maybe overly simplistic. This is probably just me though, not the book's fault, and it may not be a problem for other (younger) readers. I also had some issues with the use of trauma in this, even though I appreciated the effort to show a wide range of experiences and reactions to some severely traumatic events.

This book gets pretty explicitly violent for a YA fantasy, so be mindful of triggers before reading this.

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vicyoung18's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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