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A review by mari_sapphic_bookworm
Reverence by Milena McKay
5.0
Juliette Lucian-Sorel is the princess of Paris with praises and flowers showering at her feet. One day, a fateful visit changes her life, like a hurricane leaving nothing familiar in its path. Katarina Vyatka is at the center of this destruction, with her silence, cold eyes, and bloody satin ribbons. They all say beware of her...yet her heart yearns for the mysterious ballerina and to keep her safe from those who dare to harm her. However, life is never easy. Behind secrets, schemes, and heartbreak, Milena McKay weaves a story of choice and love in the 1980s in Paris that will certainly break your heart and piece it back together.
All the readers would say the same thing, but Reverence broke me entirely. Enough to storm our dear author’s DMs crying in pain. McKay has again proved one thing with Reverence. She is a damn genius and no one will refute that unless it is over my dead body. I mean it. Now, enough with the fangirling and back to the book, Mari.
Reverence can be described in two words, love and history.
First, let’s talk about love. McKay writes ice queens with the most fragile hearts that are guarded by walls as high as the Eiffel Tower. They are usually hated or feared, and people do not care enough to try to see who is behind the icy barrier. Sometimes the walls become higher because people are not worthy of cherishing the fragile heart behind the walls. However, if you have the chance (or should I say honor) to see behind these walls, they are the ones who love the hardest with all their broken hearts. Fear is usually the emotion that rules them, not selfishness. In fact, selflessness is shown in the love of McKay’s ice queens despite their fear. Katarina is one example. Despite the pain and pressure inflicted upon her for so long a time, she still finds the strength to endure and love. That love is based on an emotion that was the last in Pandora’s Box, an emotion that still shone brightly after all of these long days in the dark with dust and cobwebs piling upon it. I assure you that this emotion is the torch that will light the path of the angst and heartbreak that the world will put our two protagonists through. Love never dies and comes back in ways that feel right.
Now, what is the factor that caused the fear and heartbreak in the love of our two protagonists? History. History that was once a reality for certain people, for a certain generation. Milena McKay usually puts pieces of herself into the books she writes. In The Delicate Things We Make, she puts on paper what she has seen and experienced, which is the injustice of the world inflicted upon victims. In These Thin Lines, she puts a piece of who she is. In Reverence, she puts a piece of those who came before her, along with her experience of her younger days. As a person who lives in Korea, a country divided and still partly in fear of war because of the greed of two forces in motion during the Cold War, history means so much. I know that my generation and those after usually think history is static, something of the past. But it will never be static, since the endurance, fight, and survival of those who came before us are the foundation of where we live. Reverence reminds us of the heart, strength, and perseverance of the survivors and history.
I loved every word and letter of this book. Brava, Milena.
I received an ARC from the author for an honest review.
All the readers would say the same thing, but Reverence broke me entirely. Enough to storm our dear author’s DMs crying in pain. McKay has again proved one thing with Reverence. She is a damn genius and no one will refute that unless it is over my dead body. I mean it. Now, enough with the fangirling and back to the book, Mari.
Reverence can be described in two words, love and history.
First, let’s talk about love. McKay writes ice queens with the most fragile hearts that are guarded by walls as high as the Eiffel Tower. They are usually hated or feared, and people do not care enough to try to see who is behind the icy barrier. Sometimes the walls become higher because people are not worthy of cherishing the fragile heart behind the walls. However, if you have the chance (or should I say honor) to see behind these walls, they are the ones who love the hardest with all their broken hearts. Fear is usually the emotion that rules them, not selfishness. In fact, selflessness is shown in the love of McKay’s ice queens despite their fear. Katarina is one example. Despite the pain and pressure inflicted upon her for so long a time, she still finds the strength to endure and love. That love is based on an emotion that was the last in Pandora’s Box, an emotion that still shone brightly after all of these long days in the dark with dust and cobwebs piling upon it. I assure you that this emotion is the torch that will light the path of the angst and heartbreak that the world will put our two protagonists through. Love never dies and comes back in ways that feel right.
Now, what is the factor that caused the fear and heartbreak in the love of our two protagonists? History. History that was once a reality for certain people, for a certain generation. Milena McKay usually puts pieces of herself into the books she writes. In The Delicate Things We Make, she puts on paper what she has seen and experienced, which is the injustice of the world inflicted upon victims. In These Thin Lines, she puts a piece of who she is. In Reverence, she puts a piece of those who came before her, along with her experience of her younger days. As a person who lives in Korea, a country divided and still partly in fear of war because of the greed of two forces in motion during the Cold War, history means so much. I know that my generation and those after usually think history is static, something of the past. But it will never be static, since the endurance, fight, and survival of those who came before us are the foundation of where we live. Reverence reminds us of the heart, strength, and perseverance of the survivors and history.
I loved every word and letter of this book. Brava, Milena.
I received an ARC from the author for an honest review.