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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
The world is fascinating and I can't wait to discover more. What powers these godstones? Where did these people come from? (I have guesses, but...) However, the biggest draw for the book is the character Elisa. Her story arc and growth as a human being is such a pleasure to follow. It's wonderful to see someone who begins with so little self esteem and quite a lot of defensiveness grow into someone who can believe in herself and really stop and LOOK at the people around her and understand what they are really feeling and meaning.
The story is about a turmoil lurking around a kingdom’s corners, and Elise is secretly wed because it would benefit the two kingdoms, since she is the ‘chosen one’.
The plot is slightly cliché, and the story doesn’t explain a lot of the ‘power’ Elise possess. Elise is displayed to be beyond ordinary, to the point of self-loathing – just because she was overweight and has an older sister who is more dominant.
Elise develops into becoming the people’s hope of winning the war-to-come, and yet her King doesn’t notice or appreciate her, and Elise remains in self-doubt. The book is packed with Elise’s journey and her development to a stronger character that will be able to lead the people when the time comes.
The book solely focuses on character development and progression for Elise. The writing complements the story progression with a lot of descriptions, but I personally found it quite slow and boring, especially because I didn’t care about any of the characters, especially Elise.
Overall I gave this a 3 out of 5 stars. I probably won’t be reading the sequels.
I don’t normally like fantasy, as many of you know, but this book had been sitting on my to-read list for a while because I’d heard good things. I ended up loving it so much, you guys. For starters, the characters are all dark-skinned except for the villains, who are pale! That’s so refreshing, given how common the trope of “dark skin equals badness/evil,” which is both tired and extremely harmful and problematic. Nice to see it subverted.
So this book is about Elisa, a 16-year-old princess “twice chosen by God” (as her nurse, Ximena, says) because she is both royalty and a Godstone bearer. The Godstone only appears once every century, and it marks its bearer as someone destined by God for a great act of some kind. Elisa certainly doesn’t feel destined for greatness, given that she’s always lived in the shadow of her more beautiful, wiser older sister, who will become Queen when their father dies. And it certainly doesn’t help that the beginning of the book finds Elisa being married off to King Alejandro of Joya D’Arena, a man she’s never met.
That’s all I’ll say about the plot so as not to ruin any of the fun for anyone, but I do want to hit on three things I adored about the book:
- Elisa is a really great main character. Did I mention she’s fat? There is one hiccup where she seems really happy that she’s lost a lot of weight at one point, which made me wonder if it was going to send the message that “now she’s skinny and she can start being awesome and attractive.” But I ended up finishing the series (the only reason I’m not reviewing the trilogy as a whole is that I really skimmed the second and third books out of sheer impatience), and she’s mentioned as being large throughout the sequels as well. (Side note: other characters comment negatively on her size a lot, so tw for fatphobia. But Elisa grows less self-conscious about it over time and stops internalizing the negativity, so, yay!) She’s also a really good war strategist because she spends so much of her time reading military strategies. Don’t get me wrong, the other characters in the book are all really strong and well-drawn characters, too, but Elisa’s still my favorite.
- The religion in the book was really fascinating to read about. There are different theories about the Godstone and its bearer, and there are even different religious sects that interpret the scriptures in different ways based on varying translations. The worldbuilding in general in this book was extremely satisfying.
- It was unpredictable, and that goes a long way with me when it comes to enjoying a book. I couldn’t predict a lot of events that happened, and moreover, everything that happened kept me riveted. Circumstances were often dire and I believed that they were dire (isn’t it the worst when you just know for a fact that everyone and everything is going to be okay?). Honestly, I just love when a book surprises me.
I’d recommend this book to anyone, even if they don’t generally like fantasy. I was so pleased with the characters, the setting, the pacing, the relationships...just everything about it was so good. It’s a new favorite, seriously, and I can’t wait to read Rae Carson’s Gold Seer trilogy (Walk on Earth a Stranger is the first one).
(Cross-posted on Youth Book Review)
Review to come.