Review by withlivjones - Hearts That Cut

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withlivjones 's review for:

Hearts That Cut by Kika Hatzopoulou

3.75

dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

This sequel is just as solid as the original book. The worldbuilding is great, the tension builds really well, and the plot develops into a massive conspiracy that affects the entire globe, all building to a huge climactic action scene. The pacing is a little all over the place, there are long stretches where not much happens and then suddenly an awful lot of information is flung your way within a couple of pages, which made it a little difficult to follow at times. I enjoyed the new characters who were introduced but I kind of wish we could have seen some more characters from book one like Rosa, Samiya, and Chimdi. I loved how the relationships between the Ora sisters develops throughout, they are definitely realistic siblings.

I did kind of feel like the stakes weren’t quite high enough? Which sounds odd because we’re talking about world-ending events here but all the major betrayals seemed to resolve themselves fairly quickly and everything ends up returning pretty much to normal at the end. I don’t know, I think I was at least expecting one of the main characters to die at the end and I was a little disappointed that that didn’t happen and instead everyone seemed to get what they wanted.

What I love most about this duology is the amount of diversity it has in its cast of characters. There are so many characters who are people of colour, LGBTQ+, or disabled, and their roles in the story have nothing to do with that, it’s just not a big deal - which is exactly how fantasy societies should work IMO.

Content Warnings