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sophiesmallhands's review
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
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? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Death, Murder, Violence, Blood, and Death of parent
Minor: Classism, Vomit, War, and Emotional abuse
ramreadsagain's review
adventurous
mysterious
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? Yes
4.0
I am very grateful to Hot Key Books for sending me a copy of this book. This is my honest review.
What a great ending to this duology, I'm so happy to finally have closure after reading The Ivory Key over a year ago and loving the heavily Indian-inspired fantasy world in its pages. The descriptions really shine, and the amazing food leaps out of the page straight into my taste buds. It was hard to read this without constantly going for snacks! It was engaging and fast paced with a lot going on and some great discussions about sibling dynamics, power, and politics. Overall, I really enjoyed it!
There's obviously not a lot I can talk about regarding the plot without spoiling the first book, but I think this was a very satisfying conclusion with enough twists and turns to keep me engaged while still feeling like the first book was also important. There's nothing worse than when a sequel hits you with a twist that renders the first installment practically useless!
I found the characters a bit frustrating at times, especially Ronak and Vira, but they are true middle siblings with an inflated sense of self-purpose and I did quite like disliking them for their awful decisions at times. Riya is my baby, and Kaleb deserves the world.
There were a few aspects of the plot that left me a bit confused, I think it got convoluted at times with lots of different groups of people running around with different motivations and some of that could have been cut to expand more on what was left. I think this may just be because it's YA but some of the 'baddies' were caricaturish at times and could have done with some deeper development. I am also a bit disappointed that there seemed to be less of the queer-normative world that felt so prevalent in the first book. Both of the straight romance plots finished with the couples pretty much together, with the one queer romance being far more ambiguous and open ended. This may just be me misremembering but I remember queerness being more at the forfront in the first book. However, I still really liked the inclusion of a few queer characters and it's always great to have a queer-normative world in the first place!
It feels like we have loads of half-finished fantasy series around at the moment, so it's great to have another finished one for people who don't want to be kept waiting for sequels. I'd absolutely recommend this to any Fantasy fan.
What a great ending to this duology, I'm so happy to finally have closure after reading The Ivory Key over a year ago and loving the heavily Indian-inspired fantasy world in its pages. The descriptions really shine, and the amazing food leaps out of the page straight into my taste buds. It was hard to read this without constantly going for snacks! It was engaging and fast paced with a lot going on and some great discussions about sibling dynamics, power, and politics. Overall, I really enjoyed it!
There's obviously not a lot I can talk about regarding the plot without spoiling the first book, but I think this was a very satisfying conclusion with enough twists and turns to keep me engaged while still feeling like the first book was also important. There's nothing worse than when a sequel hits you with a twist that renders the first installment practically useless!
I found the characters a bit frustrating at times, especially Ronak and Vira, but they are true middle siblings with an inflated sense of self-purpose and I did quite like disliking them for their awful decisions at times. Riya is my baby, and Kaleb deserves the world.
There were a few aspects of the plot that left me a bit confused, I think it got convoluted at times with lots of different groups of people running around with different motivations and some of that could have been cut to expand more on what was left. I think this may just be because it's YA but some of the 'baddies' were caricaturish at times and could have done with some deeper development. I am also a bit disappointed that there seemed to be less of the queer-normative world that felt so prevalent in the first book.
It feels like we have loads of half-finished fantasy series around at the moment, so it's great to have another finished one for people who don't want to be kept waiting for sequels. I'd absolutely recommend this to any Fantasy fan.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Death
Minor: Death of parent and War
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