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3.99 AVERAGE
3.99 AVERAGE
Please visit sltrbooks.home.blog/2021/02/06/the-gilded-ones-by-namina-forna-arc for a full view!
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Thank you so much to the publisher and Terminal Tours for the eARC in exchange for an honest review and participation on the publicity tour!
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Thank you so much to the publisher and Terminal Tours for the eARC in exchange for an honest review and participation on the publicity tour!
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
sad
tense
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:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Murder, War, Injury/Injury detail
The Gilded Ones <3
Rating: 5 stars. And jeez, so deserving of it.
Book Summary: This book follows Deka and the alaki's journey through hardship and torture to find themselves and pride themselves for being 'unusual' in the eyes of Society. Deka was found un-natrual by The Elders. The purity ceremony defines the unnatural ones by cutting them and seeing which colour the cuts bleeds: red, they are pure: gold, they are alakis, strange impure demons.
Deka bleeds gold when she's cut and as the Deathshrieks come ripping the village into shreds Deka has a strange feeling; she's the one controlling them. Her eyes flash an unnatrual colour, her voice commanding the Deathrieks. She gets put in a cell. Tortured and losing the people she loves, her father and so on, when they disembody and burn her with merciless eyes. Then 'White Hand', Lady Of The Equus as she is also nicknamed, visits her in her cell. White Hand claims if she commits herself being turned into a Soldier to kill the Deathshrieks with all the other alakis then after 20 years she will be pure. Hope tears at her body as she accepts White Hand's offer. Finding a new friend, an alaki like Deka, Britta.
She can survive death, she can be healthy without food. Why and how?
5 word moodboard: Power, Friendship, Found Family, Strength, an unstoppable read.
Favourite Characters: Deka, Keita, Ixa.
Other notes: Definitely a must read. Emotional, gripping, fantastical and mystery. All wrapped in hope and friendship. Recommend this to any age! Buy this book right now!
Rating: 5 stars. And jeez, so deserving of it.
Book Summary: This book follows Deka and the alaki's journey through hardship and torture to find themselves and pride themselves for being 'unusual' in the eyes of Society. Deka was found un-natrual by The Elders. The purity ceremony defines the unnatural ones by cutting them and seeing which colour the cuts bleeds: red, they are pure: gold, they are alakis, strange impure demons.
Deka bleeds gold when she's cut and as the Deathshrieks come ripping the village into shreds Deka has a strange feeling; she's the one controlling them. Her eyes flash an unnatrual colour, her voice commanding the Deathrieks. She gets put in a cell. Tortured and losing the people she loves, her father and so on, when they disembody and burn her with merciless eyes. Then 'White Hand', Lady Of The Equus as she is also nicknamed, visits her in her cell. White Hand claims if she commits herself being turned into a Soldier to kill the Deathshrieks with all the other alakis then after 20 years she will be pure. Hope tears at her body as she accepts White Hand's offer. Finding a new friend, an alaki like Deka, Britta.
She can survive death, she can be healthy without food. Why and how?
5 word moodboard: Power, Friendship, Found Family, Strength, an unstoppable read.
Favourite Characters: Deka, Keita, Ixa.
Other notes: Definitely a must read. Emotional, gripping, fantastical and mystery. All wrapped in hope and friendship. Recommend this to any age! Buy this book right now!
One of my favorites of the year! So original, creative, emotive. All of the best things.
DNF about 36%
I wanted to read half, but I'm simply not enjoying this read at all. I can see the potential here, I can see the story the author wanted to tell. The problem is... that story isn't being told.
There are references to massive levels of religious repression of women, but the only one really shown is that women wear face coverings--and that one is mentioned more often because it's being broken. Deka is so wholly not a product of this system she was raised in! For someone raised in a system apparently designed to make her docile, she has no hesitation being outgoing, talking back to authority, etc., just as soon as the story presents a perfect opportunity for her to do so. Unfortunately she has yet to use this action to move the story forward. She is a fully passive character--not even reactive. Just passive.
Another thing that really bugged me about this read was that Deka never really seemed emotionally affected by... well, anything, but more than anything by the whole 'impure' thing. Look. She has been conditioned her ENTIRE DAMN LIFE to believe that this is the WORST fate, that she is DEMONIC. And she just... she's fine with that? She wants to be purified but she doesn't seem to have much emotion towards herself. This is basically changeling mythology and any neurodivergent author handling such a story would have understood how alien and wrong this could make a person feel. That is noticeably absent from this book. In a way this is echoed in the heavy allusions to rape. Imagine being surrounded by victims of trafficking and having virtually no feeling toward them shy of, "Wow, I was pretty lucky!" I find this trend very crass. Paper Girls did the same thing, treated rape as commonplace but only relevant when it happened to the main character. (Which as far as I read, did not happen in The Gilded Ones. That's fine. Books without sexual assault are good! But books that use it as window dressing to emphasize how crappy the world is, without having the courage to confront it for the character? That's another matter. That feels exploitative.)
The world-building isn't bad, it just isn't finished. The author has a bad habit of using lists--here are 12 new characters, who will now be referred to by name as if you remember them. Here are 5 types of species you are going to see referenced again. And again the lack of tonal consistency is a problem here, because there are a bunch of creatures mentioned and Deka doesn't have much reaction to them. So are they commonplace? If so, why not mention them earlier? Seriously, why waste so much time on cows when you could have introduced a fantasy species properly? The biggest problem was the death-shrieks. The idea is solid, but... um... I'm pretty sure they killed some people in Deka's village? But that wasn't given any time. Only what happened to Deka. She keeps freaking out about them, but they're nerfed every time, so it just makes her seem incredibly cowardly.
I wanted to read half, but I'm simply not enjoying this read at all. I can see the potential here, I can see the story the author wanted to tell. The problem is... that story isn't being told.
There are references to massive levels of religious repression of women, but the only one really shown is that women wear face coverings--and that one is mentioned more often because it's being broken. Deka is so wholly not a product of this system she was raised in! For someone raised in a system apparently designed to make her docile, she has no hesitation being outgoing, talking back to authority, etc., just as soon as the story presents a perfect opportunity for her to do so. Unfortunately she has yet to use this action to move the story forward. She is a fully passive character--not even reactive. Just passive.
Another thing that really bugged me about this read was that Deka never really seemed emotionally affected by... well, anything, but more than anything by the whole 'impure' thing. Look. She has been conditioned her ENTIRE DAMN LIFE to believe that this is the WORST fate, that she is DEMONIC. And she just... she's fine with that? She wants to be purified but she doesn't seem to have much emotion towards herself. This is basically changeling mythology and any neurodivergent author handling such a story would have understood how alien and wrong this could make a person feel. That is noticeably absent from this book. In a way this is echoed in the heavy allusions to rape. Imagine being surrounded by victims of trafficking and having virtually no feeling toward them shy of, "Wow, I was pretty lucky!" I find this trend very crass. Paper Girls did the same thing, treated rape as commonplace but only relevant when it happened to the main character. (Which as far as I read, did not happen in The Gilded Ones. That's fine. Books without sexual assault are good! But books that use it as window dressing to emphasize how crappy the world is, without having the courage to confront it for the character? That's another matter. That feels exploitative.)
The world-building isn't bad, it just isn't finished. The author has a bad habit of using lists--here are 12 new characters, who will now be referred to by name as if you remember them. Here are 5 types of species you are going to see referenced again. And again the lack of tonal consistency is a problem here, because there are a bunch of creatures mentioned and Deka doesn't have much reaction to them. So are they commonplace? If so, why not mention them earlier? Seriously, why waste so much time on cows when you could have introduced a fantasy species properly? The biggest problem was the death-shrieks. The idea is solid, but... um... I'm pretty sure they killed some people in Deka's village? But that wasn't given any time. Only what happened to Deka. She keeps freaking out about them, but they're nerfed every time, so it just makes her seem incredibly cowardly.
adventurous
dark
hopeful
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Definitely one of my favorite reads this year. Namina had a wonderful way of weaving in topics of xenophobia, racism, misogyny, and discrimination without it feeling like you were being thrown into a whole discussion on human rights issues. She did a great job with character development. I just Deka wouldn't "gasp" so much over everything.
This has violent and gory content in a surprising amount for YA. There’s also rape off-screen and child abuse so I wouldn't recommend the book to anyone else than 14-15 yo.
This has violent and gory content in a surprising amount for YA. There’s also rape off-screen and child abuse so I wouldn't recommend the book to anyone else than 14-15 yo.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
slow-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:
No
My very first fantasy book. I didn’t think I was going to enjoy it but it was sweet , beautiful and interesting. I truly enjoyed it. I’m looking forward to reading the sequel.
The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna is an incredible YA fantasy novel that I feel everyone should read. The worldbuilding is amazing, the characters are beautifully written and the way so many lessons are trickled through this story make it such a powerful novel.
The story centres around a 16 year old called Deka, who like all girls at age 16 is forced to undergo a blood ceremony to test her purity and determine whether she can become an official member of her village, where if she passes she will be forced to be masked for the rest of her life, and live only to serve her husband and produce children with nothing else being allowed, not even running or walking too fast is allowed for females. For girls whose blood is not considered pure, they are to be put to death by the village men. However, the ‘impure’ girls have extraordinary abilities and so they are given a choice by an unlikely saviour: stay and face the death mandate, or leave to fight for the emperor in an army of ‘impure’ girls. They are the only ones who can stop the empire’s greatest threat but to do so will mean leaving everything they know in the past and forging new familial bonds of love and friendship with those just like them.
This book is full of excitement, action, and excellent social commentary on feminism and patriarchy. There is A LOT of misogyny, abuse, and violence at the beginning of this book, which was hard to read, and I was unsure at the start whether I would be able to continue reading it. However, it didn’t take long for me to get past that and truly appreciate the story. Despite the violence, heartache and abuse, this books foundation is one full of joy, love and friendship, ones you make on your own without the ties of your blood family. I finished this book a few days ago and it is still playing on my mind constantly. I'm think about how amazing the friendships we find ourselves are, how the story delves into what it means to be a female in a patriarchal society, what it means when your family disowns you for being different, what it means to rise above everything the hierarchy tries to smother in you, and what it means to find faith in others.
The story centres around a 16 year old called Deka, who like all girls at age 16 is forced to undergo a blood ceremony to test her purity and determine whether she can become an official member of her village, where if she passes she will be forced to be masked for the rest of her life, and live only to serve her husband and produce children with nothing else being allowed, not even running or walking too fast is allowed for females. For girls whose blood is not considered pure, they are to be put to death by the village men. However, the ‘impure’ girls have extraordinary abilities and so they are given a choice by an unlikely saviour: stay and face the death mandate, or leave to fight for the emperor in an army of ‘impure’ girls. They are the only ones who can stop the empire’s greatest threat but to do so will mean leaving everything they know in the past and forging new familial bonds of love and friendship with those just like them.
This book is full of excitement, action, and excellent social commentary on feminism and patriarchy. There is A LOT of misogyny, abuse, and violence at the beginning of this book, which was hard to read, and I was unsure at the start whether I would be able to continue reading it. However, it didn’t take long for me to get past that and truly appreciate the story. Despite the violence, heartache and abuse, this books foundation is one full of joy, love and friendship, ones you make on your own without the ties of your blood family. I finished this book a few days ago and it is still playing on my mind constantly. I'm think about how amazing the friendships we find ourselves are, how the story delves into what it means to be a female in a patriarchal society, what it means when your family disowns you for being different, what it means to rise above everything the hierarchy tries to smother in you, and what it means to find faith in others.