Take a photo of a barcode or cover
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
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:
Complicated
{This is my honest ARC review via Book Sirens}
This was an absolute delight to read!! Reclaimed felt like a love-letter to the trans experience as well as an appreciation to any queer person who has ever fought the internal battle it can take to love yourself exactly as you are. Even if you're never quite done navigating (in the author's own words) tensions of the self, tensions between others, and the difficulties of self-love"...even if you fear you'll never be "perfect."
The story may have been slow to draw me in at first — I only say this as someone who loves a good mystery but has a little difficulty learning names, political roles, and places in fantasy settings such as these — but once the focus shifted towards the characters and the different dynamics at play, I was hooked!! Saba has to maneuver through many different relationships: his fellow scholars, his friends, his new love interest/captor, his estranged brother, and his country, all while trying to solve the mysteries of another plane of existence and how to save not just them, but reality as they know it! The romance, too, is so satisfying and sweet to see unfold, I hope your heart melts the way mine did seeing Saba and Zek's attraction and care for each other develop💜
Saba's story is so unique and clearly has a lot of tenderness and compassion from the author woven into his character, which was lovely to witness. The beautiful mess of Saba's heart, fighting with his logical scholarly brain, fighting with the perceived imperfections Saba can't help but see in his body created a story so compelling and painfully queer that I was left breath-taken. I may not be trans but I am queer, and so I was pleasantly surprised when I saw a version of many of my own inner fears and inner perceptions reflected back to me.
I wanted Saba to understand that he was admirable, worthy, and desirable to such a kind man as Zek, but I really wanted him to think it of himself. Others could do everything right, tell him exactly what he wanted to hear, and none of it would matter unless he believed it himself. The gratification of seeing Saba realize just how much he's accomplished in his work, how much his body does to serve and protect him, and just how special he is even if he may never undergo the change he craves more than his own life, made my heart positively glow.
That being said, I just need to say how much I absolutely adore Zek's character and it's no wonder Saba likes him! Zek is calm, patient, unprejudiced, precise, and wants to get to the truth of things — people included. He doesn't seem to judge anything or anyone before he has all the facts, and he has a steady sureness in the way he carries himself or confronts others who are more argumentative. He has a warm, reassuring temperament, and he has such endearing gestures and habits like his little smiles and winks that makes you feel like everything is alright, even if just in this moment. He may not share the same struggles and insecurities as Saba, but he does his best to relate and empathize as someone dealing with chronic pain and physical disability, someone with a body that doesn't always do what he wants it to do. His loss of grief and the neutral acceptance of the body he has — and how his life might have been different had his leg not been injured all those years ago — was an interesting contrast to Saba's bodily struggle as someone who would gladly change his body in a heartbeat.
The criticisms I have are small but I still wanted to address:
The other side characters, Mossine and Silvana, I found a bit difficult to warm up to: Moss with all her bouncy energy, her emotions that burst as strongly to the outside as loudly as Saba feels things inside, and her sometimes cringey excitement/over-investment in Saba's love life could be a little painful sometimes. Silvana was a good juxtaposition to Moss as the stoic paladin, but when placed in a group or a crowd, I had a hard time placing her in my memory as someone who had such little presence and not as crucial a role as the other side characters, even compared to some of the masked sentinels.
The inclusion of a sapphic side-pairing initially made me very excited! I'm always looking for more wlw representation, and I was eager to see how their relationship would juxtapose Saba and Zek's, especially because Moss and Silvana's relationship was meant to be more "forbidden." Their status difference required jumping through the proper hoops, plus a scholar and paladin didn't really have much opportunity to go down the same path once everything is over, so there was the bittersweet hope they could stay together in the future...but there was never any follow-up or conclusion to their love story, to the point I feel like it could have been cut completely and I wouldn't have noticed any difference.
I also felt that certain words and phrases describing the phenomenon surrounding the eye could get very repetitive, particularly "prismatic light," and some of the vocabulary used during the spicy scenes left a bad taste in my mouth (a particular c-word that I can't help interpreting as derogatory), though I was glad they were only used maybe twice. I still appreciated and enjoyed how much love and appreciation there was with the spice, so I wasn't too put off by the word choice.
It's impossible not to share Saba's heartache and longing, and I found myself loving the way the story unfolded in the last third so that he could have the different perspective he needed to rethink his own value, self-worth, and lovable attractiveness. Saba's body is, as it's referred to as throughout the story, of his own making, and his own choosing. He chose himself. Crafted and unknowingly woven with magic as he defies the life/identity he left behind, he chases the ideal body he's always dreamed of and clings to both the belief that the astral sea (even in all its alien properties and obvious dangers) is made of boundless potential as well as to the terrible love he has for the fruit of his life's research that has unfortunately been caught up in a deadly calamity to his home and his people. His years of research, though snatched and twisted by others into something twisted and tainted, is as precious to him as his ideal future self.
Reclaimed is a fantasy worthy of its title: it's a story about reclaiming your truth, reclaiming your body, and reclaiming the narrative of who you are.
This was an absolute delight to read!! Reclaimed felt like a love-letter to the trans experience as well as an appreciation to any queer person who has ever fought the internal battle it can take to love yourself exactly as you are. Even if you're never quite done navigating (in the author's own words) tensions of the self, tensions between others, and the difficulties of self-love"...even if you fear you'll never be "perfect."
The story may have been slow to draw me in at first — I only say this as someone who loves a good mystery but has a little difficulty learning names, political roles, and places in fantasy settings such as these — but once the focus shifted towards the characters and the different dynamics at play, I was hooked!! Saba has to maneuver through many different relationships: his fellow scholars, his friends, his new love interest/captor, his estranged brother, and his country, all while trying to solve the mysteries of another plane of existence and how to save not just them, but reality as they know it! The romance, too, is so satisfying and sweet to see unfold, I hope your heart melts the way mine did seeing Saba and Zek's attraction and care for each other develop💜
Saba's story is so unique and clearly has a lot of tenderness and compassion from the author woven into his character, which was lovely to witness. The beautiful mess of Saba's heart, fighting with his logical scholarly brain, fighting with the perceived imperfections Saba can't help but see in his body created a story so compelling and painfully queer that I was left breath-taken. I may not be trans but I am queer, and so I was pleasantly surprised when I saw a version of many of my own inner fears and inner perceptions reflected back to me.
I wanted Saba to understand that he was admirable, worthy, and desirable to such a kind man as Zek, but I really wanted him to think it of himself. Others could do everything right, tell him exactly what he wanted to hear, and none of it would matter unless he believed it himself. The gratification of seeing Saba realize just how much he's accomplished in his work, how much his body does to serve and protect him, and just how special he is even if he may never undergo the change he craves more than his own life, made my heart positively glow.
That being said, I just need to say how much I absolutely adore Zek's character and it's no wonder Saba likes him! Zek is calm, patient, unprejudiced, precise, and wants to get to the truth of things — people included. He doesn't seem to judge anything or anyone before he has all the facts, and he has a steady sureness in the way he carries himself or confronts others who are more argumentative. He has a warm, reassuring temperament, and he has such endearing gestures and habits like his little smiles and winks that makes you feel like everything is alright, even if just in this moment. He may not share the same struggles and insecurities as Saba, but he does his best to relate and empathize as someone dealing with chronic pain and physical disability, someone with a body that doesn't always do what he wants it to do. His loss of grief and the neutral acceptance of the body he has — and how his life might have been different had his leg not been injured all those years ago — was an interesting contrast to Saba's bodily struggle as someone who would gladly change his body in a heartbeat.
The criticisms I have are small but I still wanted to address:
The other side characters, Mossine and Silvana, I found a bit difficult to warm up to: Moss with all her bouncy energy, her emotions that burst as strongly to the outside as loudly as Saba feels things inside, and her sometimes cringey excitement/over-investment in Saba's love life could be a little painful sometimes. Silvana was a good juxtaposition to Moss as the stoic paladin, but when placed in a group or a crowd, I had a hard time placing her in my memory as someone who had such little presence and not as crucial a role as the other side characters, even compared to some of the masked sentinels.
I also felt that certain words and phrases describing the phenomenon surrounding the eye could get very repetitive, particularly "prismatic light," and some of the vocabulary used during the spicy scenes left a bad taste in my mouth (a particular c-word that I can't help interpreting as derogatory), though I was glad they were only used maybe twice. I still appreciated and enjoyed how much love and appreciation there was with the spice, so I wasn't too put off by the word choice.
It's impossible not to share Saba's heartache and longing, and I found myself loving the way the story unfolded in the last third so that he could have the different perspective he needed to rethink his own value, self-worth, and lovable attractiveness. Saba's body is, as it's referred to as throughout the story, of his own making, and his own choosing. He chose himself. Crafted and unknowingly woven with magic as he defies the life/identity he left behind, he chases the ideal body he's always dreamed of and clings to both the belief that the astral sea (even in all its alien properties and obvious dangers) is made of boundless potential as well as to the terrible love he has for the fruit of his life's research that has unfortunately been caught up in a deadly calamity to his home and his people. His years of research, though snatched and twisted by others into something twisted and tainted, is as precious to him as his ideal future self.
Reclaimed is a fantasy worthy of its title: it's a story about reclaiming your truth, reclaiming your body, and reclaiming the narrative of who you are.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Blood, Gaslighting, Colonisation, Dysphoria, Injury/Injury detail, Classism
Moderate: Body shaming, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Deadnaming, Death, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Violence, Grief, Murder, Colonisation, War, Classism, Deportation