Review by rinku - Prison Healer - Die Schattenheilerin

rinku 's review for:

Prison Healer - Die Schattenheilerin by Lynette Noni

3.5

dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

The Prison Healer gets 3.5 stars from me. I really liked the setting and Kiva as a main character, and the story was engaging but the world building was quite lacking.

This novel takes place in one setting, the prison Zalindov. Kiva has been there since she was a child and became the healer in the prison, leading to her having a better standing than other prisoners. One day, the Rebel Queen comes into the prison and Kiva takes her place in the elemental games to earn her freedom. I found this general premise to be intriguing, even though the elemental games are the cliché death games without much sense that every YA fantasy novel apparently now needs to have. The rebels are a bit stereotypical as well, especially because there’s not much world building in this book and we don’t really know against what they’re rebelling. Still, the story is engaging, and I was eager to find out what would happen next. Throughout the story, there’s this great dark atmosphere and a lot of drama because Kiva suffers a lot – the elemental games are truly terrible. The elemental magic though is nothing special, unfortunately.

I furthermore liked the twists, like the one

with the poison or that Jaren is the prince

. The ending stressed me a bit out;

it was obvious that it would happen in the tunnels. Kiva and Jaren have an hour, and they spent like half an hour with talking. Kiva having magic abilities didn’t surprise at the end

My favourite aspect of The Prison Healer are probably the characters. Kiva is a great main character, and it’s so interesting to see how she gets opportunities thanks to her healing abilities. Her character development is so amazing. It was also nice to not have an insta love for once. Besides her, Naari is probably my favourite character, and I like Jaren, even though he annoyed me a bit at the beginning.

All things considered; I would recommend The Prison Healer for everyone who likes to read YA fantasy. It’s definitely one of the better books in this genre that have been published in the last years.

Content Warnings