thewrittenadventure 's review for:

Secondborn by Amy A. Bartol
3.0

This is your average story of a girl being thrusted into a fate that she is destined for (think Hunger Games or Red Queen). Roselle St. Sismode is a second born child which in this novel is a bad thing. Only firstborns are allowed to take important positions, secondborn children must fight in their fates' armies or work in an assigned job, and thirdborns aren't supposed to exist. Roselle is trained from an early age how to fight opponents because she knows that she is supposed to fight in the army in the worst rebellion of the world's history. She meets Hawthorne, another secondborn, who watches out for her after an attack was made on her city. Will she be able to survive her first week and make her own destiny or will she die like many other secondborns in her situation? 

The first part that I disliked is that the fates in the world aren't really explained as much as I would have liked. I felt like I was struggling a lot with the world building and trying to figure out the different rules that were in this world. A lot of it is just trying to read over the material, when a fact of the world is being mentioned, and trying to string it along with what you already know. I know there is a second book coming out, so hopefully that will solidify what I've already learned in the first book. 

There is a moment where Roselle shaves her legs and everyone treats her differently because of it. All the men in the room stop to stare and there is a comment made that she is now more attractive because of it. (Since all other females do not shave their legs.) This section came off as creepy and weird, something that I couldn't get out of my head for a couple of chapters after. 

There was another obsession, in tandem with this last point, about the character's looks and beauty. I felt like every time that Roselle changed clothes or had to look different, there was some sort of comment about her shape. This didn't escape the male characters either, Hawthorne is continuously noted about his broad chest and defined arms. While descriptions can help the reader understand what the characters look like, it is not needed every time they change clothes. 

I think these are problems that could have been fixed with some simple revisions and perhaps another look of an editor, they would have been able to pick out the world building problem.


Overall, the story was really interesting and I am anxiously awaiting the second installation of the series.