Scan barcode
A review by callmekt
The Unbroken by C.L. Clark
adventurous
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
It isn't supposed to happen like this. This is the common thread throughout The Unbroken, book 1 in Magic of the Lost by C.L. Clark. It feels like I've read this story before, a story riddled with good intentions and bad outcomes and miscommunications. Politics and war and the struggle of leadership. But I haven't read the story like this, a story that centers two women with similar hopes but different motivations. A story about a soldier educated with propaganda who unlearns her upbringing when confronted with the plight of people who look like her. A story about a royal who wanted to set things right but was too wrapped up with scholarly theories to fully understand the breadth of her decisions. Plans go awry. Hearts are broken. Relationships are strained. And through it all, questions of magic and gods and what it means to believe in a being more powerful than you can understand. Keep your eyes on The Unbroken. Pray for rain.
Graphic: Blood, Death, Gore, Slavery, Torture, Trafficking, and Violence
Moderate: Confinement, Cursing, Excrement, Grief, Hate crime, and Murder
Minor: Sexual assault
One of the main characters was taken as a child and educated in the "civilized" manner of her captors. She, and the rest of her brethren, are slaves. The sexual assault is an attempt and referenced multiple times, mostly in the first half of the book.