Tag: Spoiler Free

Reviews

Sky Without Stars by Jessica Brody and Joanne Rendell (Book 1)

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# of Pages: 579

Time it took me to read: 5 Days

# of pages a day to finish in a week: 83

Rating: 4 out of 5

Chatine Renard has been a crook all her life. In the Frets of the capital city on the planet Laterre, she must steal, lie, and con as a boy to survive. If anyone knew she was a girl, it would be off to the blood bordels for her, where she’d be forced to sell the nutrients in her blood for money. But she, like everyone else in the Third Estate, dreams of a better life. And she’s so close she can taste it, all she needs is one last, big con and she’ll have the money for passage off of Laterre.

Marcellus is desperate to fill the shoes he was born into. He is constantly in his grandfather’s shadow, the great General of Laterre, and next in line to be commander. That is, if he can show everyone that he is not a traitor like his father, a famous terrorist currently serving life in prison for treason and murder. But when rebellion starts to brew on Laterre, will Marcellus stick to the status quo, or find that he has more in common with rebels than the Regime he is sworn to uphold?

Alouette has lived underground as long as she can remember. Safe from the turmoil on the planet’s surface, Alouette and her father live a simple life with the sisters, an order sworn to a quiet life of protecting the precious books brought over from the old world, the only written history on Laterre. Alouette wants nothing more than to join this order and dedicate her life to the library that would certainly be destroyed if ever discovered by the Regime. But when Alouette braves the world above to help someone in need, she’ll find all is not what it seems. She’ll have to question everything she’s ever known if she’s to discover the truth: about who she is, and how she and her father came to live among the sisters.

The stories of Chatine, Marcellus, and Aloutte become inextricably woven as a rebellion works to rise again, despite the current Regime’s desperation to cling to the way things have always been: with the Third Estate poor, hungry, and submissive, while the First Estate plays and the Second Estate rules. In this imaginative retelling of the classic story Les Miserables, you’ll find that nothing is as it seems, until you’re sure that the only thing you know is that you know nothing at all.

Review (SPOILER FREE!):

Howdy friends! Normally here I’d do a brief review and then a summary, since this is Book 1, but the main reason I do summaries is so that I can review them before diving into the sequel, a little gift for my future self. However, I have learned that Book 2 in The System Divine series HAS A SUMMARY published in the front of the book, which is the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard. So I’m just gonna do a regular review for ya’ll.

I have to start by saying that I am a HUGE Les Miserables (Les Mis) fan. I’ve only seen the stage production once, but I’m obsessed with the 2012 move, obsessed with the music, etc. So I fully read this book knowing it was a Les Mis retelling, and looking for every detail that they threw in, every Easter egg. And boy were there plenty, so if you read this review and know nothing of Les Mis, sorry, you might not know why I’m so excited or who all I’m referencing as the characters. So I’ll just leave this here for anyone interested in reading this book, but is unfamiliar with the source material: You should read it anyway! It’s a great story, and it doesn’t require any Les Mis knowledge to enjoy.

Moving on to the main characters. For those Les Mis fans out there, I’ll make it real simple (this is not a spoiler, it’s literally clear from the first time you meet these characters): Chatine = Eponine, Marcellus = Marius, and Alouette = Cosette. They are the three protagonists in this story, as well as in part of Les Mis. And while other memorable character archetypes are present throughout (Marius’s grandfather, the Thenardiers, Javert, Gavroche, and of course Jean Valjean), they don’t all play the roles you’d expect, and their relationships to each other aren’t all the same either. There are some interesting original characters as well, so it’s not a mirror image to the source material.

I thoroughly enjoyed the stories of all three protagonists. I occasionally struggle with stories with casts that I call “in-betweeners”. In my experience, one to two narrators is normal, and indicative of a small to medium cast of characters. Then there is large cast, with the narration changing between 4+ characters, often giving more of an omnipresent narrator or “movie” vibe. I enjoy large cast books, if done well, but read mostly books that stick to one to two perspectives. With three protagonists and thus three primary narrators, this book is definitely stuck between small and large cast. But it totally worked for me, I found myself engaged in the storylines of all three protagonists, which is tough to accomplish.

I’m going to speak briefly about the plot, and how similar or dissimilar it is to the source material. I’ll be brief, because I don’t want to give any spoilers. But I thought these authors did a great job of blending original plot and ideas into this story, while still being true to the source materials. There are some areas that are totally original, for example Marcellus’s backstory (although, tbh, I’m basing that off of my movie/stage production knowledge of Les Mis, not Victor Hugo’s original novel, which I have never read). However, there are some parts that are as by-the-book (or by-the-movie, rather), as it gets. I’ll not reveal which parts, because that’s obviously a spoiler. And there are just some little details that gave me a thrill to read, such as the prisoner number 24601 being used (Jean Valjean’s prisoner number), and the fact that Alouette is a singer. There’s also an awesome little scene that gave me big “Lovely Ladies” vibes, which is one of my favorite songs, so that was *chef’s kiss*.

Alrighty, world-building. I was absolutely HERE for the concept of “Les Mis, but instead of 19th century France, make it a space dystopia that is super based in French culture”. I thought the authors did a great job of not doing a lot of info-dumping, even though they did include a lot of lingo and there was a lot of world building / history to be done. I also mostly thought the little bits of French that they threw in there were fun, even if some of the substitutions did make me giggle/roll my eyes a little bit. For example the sentence “I had never felt so stupide”, like why would you not just say “Stupid”? Anyway, that’s obviously nitpicky, I overall enjoyed the vibe very much.

And now, finally, the reason that I knocked off a star: pacing. This was a long book and I FELT it. I don’t really feel like much happened in the first half, at all, besides the minor event that triggered the story taking off. There is a lot of mystery and intrigue, which is great, but it’s the kind of stuff that you’re like “I’m not going to learn the answers to this until the very end, or even maybe not until the next book”, which makes it really hard to be eager to turn page after page when you’ve still got 300 pages until the end. I think it was probably slow-paced by necessity, there was a lot of backstory, but I do wish there had been more action sprinkled in to keep me going through all the backstory. I have a feeling the next book is going to be much quicker, so I’m stoked, but I had to take off a star because a book that is almost six hundred pages and super slow until almost the last quarter is kinda rough.

Overall, I loved it. I can really see the next book being a five out of five for me, and I’m very excited that the sequel is already out. I probably won’t get to it for a while, but I’m really looking forward to when I do get the chance to pick it up. Once again, I recommend checking out this book, even if you’re not a Les Mis fan, but ESPECIALLY if you are.

Now, I’m off to watch the 2012 Les Miserables movie for the millionth time, see ya’ll next time!

If you liked Sky Without Stars, try these other creative retellings of classic stories:

Troy by Adele Geras is a retelling of Homer’s Iliad with unique perspectives

Thorn by Intisar Khanani is a retelling of the classic Goose Girl fairytale

These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong is a dark, gangster spin on Romeo and Juliet

Dark Breaks the Dawn by Sara B. Larson is a fantastical retelling of the Swan Lake story

Reviews

Red Rising by Pierce Brown (Book 1)

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# of Pages: 382

Time it took me to read: 7 days

# of pages a day to finish in a week: 54

Rating: 3 out of 5

Darrow has the life he has always imagined for himself. He’s a Helldiver, the most dangerous job in the underground mines of Mars where his caste, the Reds, live. But the job comes with prestige and respect, and he’s married to the girl of his dreams, Eo, and lives surrounded by his family. But Eo has always dreamed of there being more in life than working the mines, watching their families, their people, die so very young due to the hard, dangerous nature of their work.

When Darrow and Eo get caught somewhere they shouldn’t be, Darrow never dreams that it will change his life forever. Because just as he thinks all is lost, someone finds him. A rebel sect that tells him everything he’s ever been told about his life and his purpose is a lie. Suddenly he is given an opportunity: make Eo’s dream a reality, and infiltrate the highest caste of their Society: the Golds, who are the perfect embodiment of human creation down to their very DNA. But if Darrow wants a chance at revenge and lifting his people from the underground mines of Mars, he must become a Gold both physically and mentally. Because then, they’ll never see him coming until it’s too late.

Review (Spoiler Free!):

Okay, I’ll say it. I really didn’t want to like this book. In fact, I was convinced I hated it until about half way through. But it’s a book for my book club so I had to finish it and now here we are. I gave this book a 3 out of 5, but really it was probably closer to a 3.5 or a 4, but since I don’t give half stars and I simply could not bring myself to give it a 4, I had to settle at 3.

I’ll start by telling you that this really isn’t my genre. Even though the protagonist, Darrow, is between 16 and 18 through the story, this is not YA. It was in the adult Sci-Fi section of the bookstore, and is certainly written in the adult style, not the YA style. And it’s Sci-Fi, of which I read very little, so I didn’t think I would like it in the first place. But I’m trying to diversify, and my book club voted on this book fair and square.

Let’s begin with pacing. This was one of the slower paced books I’ve ever read. 382 pages dragged, I had to read the book around 50 pages at a time all the way until the last hundred or so when I was finally able to push hard through it. The first 50 pages in particular does that thing, you know, that a lot of Sci-Fi (and some hard fantasy) books do where they spend the first 50-100 pages completely info-dumping you into the world. The second 50 pages is a bit better, but still a tough read. If I could rate the first 100 pages separately from the rest of the book, I’d give them a 1 out of 5 and the rest of the book a 4. I’m pretty convinced that this book is objectively slow-paced, but I’ll admit that my opinion that it was a complete sludge to get through is probably subjective. If you’re into this genre, it probably isn’t so bad.

So here I am, 100 pages in, and I’m convinced I’m going to hate this book from start to finish. Because up until now all that has happened is the catalyst to the rest of the story buried in very in-depth Sci-Fi explanations and lingo. But then, all of the sudden, this book stops reading like a Sci-Fi I can’t wrap my head around and starts reading like dystopia. It gets VERY Hunger Games-esque, very fast. And all of the sudden, pretty much against my will, I find myself on board. I would have bet money at 100 pages in that never in a million years would the plot hook me by the end, but I would have lost that money. Because not only did the plot hook me, but by the end of the book I found myself completely immersed in the story, staying up too late on a work night to finish it, almost like I’d do with a book I actually enjoyed. Go figure.

However, as much as I did end up enjoying the plot by the end, there were a few parts of this book that I have to rant about because I did not like at all. First off, the style. Ugh, the first 50-100 pages the writing was so stylized that I felt like I was rolling my eyes and gagging through most of it. Not only was the sci-fi lingo almost unintelligible from the very first page, but the way the dialogue was written was so incredibly strange, almost like someone put English through Google Translate into a completely different language, and then had Google Translate it back to English. But the even weirder part…like half way through the book they just…stop talking weird. Like, any kind of “dialect” that the author created just kind of…went away. Except for a few random moments that felt purposeful, the rest of the dialogue was normal. Super duper strange. Like, I feel like if you’re going to commit to the unique dialect, you have to go all in, or not do it at all. This half-and-half thing seemed wishy-washy.

Also, and this is definitely a personal opinion that I get is pretty snobby, but the author kind of tried to pull some Greco-Roman (mostly Roman) themes in there with each of the Gold houses being like “House Venus” and “House Jupiter”. But it kinda just felt like the author cracked open one book about the Roman gods, skimmed it, and then decided to try and make it a whole thing. I think he should have either made something up entirely his own, or just gone real big with it. But again…kinda wishy-washy.

And finally, probably one of my biggest pet peeves (particularly since I ended up being hooked by the plot in the end), is that I do not like Darrow. I think he is a boring, pretentious character who doesn’t go through any earned or engaging arc. I was far more engaged by some of the side characters, though many of them annoyed me too. Besides like one female character, I felt like all the female side characters were plot devices, which is honestly pretty typical of many male sci-fi and fantasy writers that I’ve read (at least in adult). I found Eo, Darrow’s young wife, way more interesting and wish she would have been more involved in the overall story. But like I said…plot device. I’m particularly peeved because it sucks for me as a reader to be engaged enough in the story that I’m going to pick up the sequel, because while I am rooting for Darrow’s cause and am engaged by the events that surround him, I am not rooting for Darrow and honestly, truly, would not care if he died in the end. It’s always mildly unpleasant/uncomfortable for me to read a book where I care about the plot but not the characters.

Regardless, I’ll pick up the sequel at some point (it’s a completed trilogy), and I’ll see if I enjoy the second book enough to finish the whole series.

I’d say, if you’re a fan of adult Sci-Fi or even a fan of Hunger Games style “fight to the death game” type stories, you could give this one a try. I think a lot of what I didn’t like about this book was subjective, I don’t think that Pierce Brown is a bad writer or anything, I just wouldn’t call myself a fan and probably wouldn’t have finished this book had it not been for my book club.

If you liked Red Rising, try:

Zenith by Sasha Alsberg & Lindsay Cummings

Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

The Diabolic by SJ Kincaid

Carve the Mark by Veronica Roth

Mini Reviews · Reviews · Uncategorized

Camping Trip Mini Reviews

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Hi friends! I’ve recently returned from a big camping trip where I got to read a whole handful of books. So I’m just going to do the tiniest of mini-reviews for each one, and if anybody wants to know more or talk more about any of these books, hit me up in the comments. Without further ado, camping trip mini reviews (all are spoiler-free)!

# of Pages: 439

Time it took me to read: 2 days

# of pages a day to finish in a week: 63

Rating: 5 out of 5

This book was a Secret Santa gift given by a co-worker who doesn’t read, he just picked it out because he thought it looked cool on Amazon. And I have to say, I was excited to read it regardless because I’d heard great things about it, but my friend really made a great pick! I started out thinking this retelling might be a little cheesy, because the character’s names are “Roma” and “Juliette”, so pretty on-the-nose, and in the setup it’s pretty obvious who the other side characters are supposed to be if you’ve read Romeo and Juliet. But this is not the simple love at first sight then die unnecessarily story. Both Roma and Juliette are well-developed characters with a past history, and the ruthless, bloody gangster backdrop makes for a really interesting read. I’m not super familiar with early 20th-century history, so I’m not sure how much of the 1920’s Shanghei is fiction and how much is history, but either way it was monstrously compelling. I’d say the story is a little slow to start, but ramps up quickly and is impossible to put down after a point. I’m so very excited for the sequel later this year, and would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of YA, classic story retellings, or historical romances.

# of Pages: 511

Time it took me to read: 2 days

# of pages a day to finish in a week: 73

Rating: 5 out of 5

I’ve only ever done a Throwback review way back in the day where I got to talk about Leigh Bardugo, so I’m stoked to finally be getting that chance again. If you haven’t heard of Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse, I’m not sure what rock you’ve been hiding under. A few months ago the wildly popular Shadow and Bone series premiered on Netflix, which covers characters from a few different series of Bardugo’s. The events of King of Scars have not been covered in the show (yet), but I’m hopeful for the future. Anyway, King of Scars is a re-read for me, because I read it years ago when it first came out, and the sequel was recently released, and I wanted to read them back-to-back. I could literally spend pages talking about why Leigh Bardugo is no-doubt one of the top authors in YA currently, but I’ll try to keep it to a few sentences. The “Grishaverse” world she has built is incredibly detailed and vivid, with each country based on the cultures of real-world places (Ravka = Russia, Kerch = The Netherlands/Amsterdam specifically). Having a fantasy world based on the real world in some ways really grounds the reader and makes it immersive. For characters, these books are pretty large cast, and she does a great job flipping perspectives while keeping the reader engaged no matter who’s story you’re reading. These books are incredibly fast paced and impossible to put down. I loved it just as much this time around as I did the first time.

# of Pages: 588

Time it took me to read: 2 days

# of pages a day to finish in a week: 84

Rating: 5 out of 5

Sequel to King of Scars, Rule of Wolves is equally fantastic. I really enjoyed the opportunity I had to read them back to back, I think it added a lot to my understanding of all of the details and plot points of this final installment. Not a whole lot to say here that I didn’t say in the previous review, Leigh Bardugo is a master world-builder and storyteller. Each of her many characters are pretty much equally engaging, and her pacing is always perfect. I think of all of my camping books I finished this one the quickest, because I honestly, truly could not stop reading it. Rule of Wolves did not end as I expected in a lot of ways, but I think all of the storylines that needed to be wrapped up were, but Bardugo always leaves herself room for writing new adventures, and I’m hoping I guessed right and she teased a new story with old favorites coming someday. Anyway, if you haven’t read any Leigh Bardugo, just do yourself a favor and get into the Grishaverse. Here is my official recommendation for the order you should read her three Grishaverse series: Six of Crows duology, Shadow and Bone trilogy, King of Scars duology. This order is not entirely chronological, but as someone who has read all of these books originally in chronological order, I can tell you you’ll have more fun reading it in the order I provided.

# of Pages: 365

Time it took me to read: 3 days

# of pages a day to finish in a week: 52

Rating: 4 out of 5

This book was a big shift from everything else I was reading on this trip, I really wanted to have a little bit of variety after reading only YA fantasy. The World That We Knew is a historical fiction novel set in Europe during the Holocaust, and like most of Alice Hoffman’s work that I’ve read, has just a touch of magic added to move it along. Lea is a young Jewish girl living in Berlin during the second world war. Her mother will do anything to get her out of the country, so she works with the daughter of a rabbi to construct a golum, a being made of clay that will serve the wishes of its master. Lea’s mother names the golum Ava and sends the two off to Paris, where she hopes they will be safe. The World that We Knew tells the story of men, women, and children across Germany and Paris who fight for the survival of themselves and others. It’s very well researched and provides many facts and figures of the devistation wrought by the Nazis during the Holocaust. Alice Hoffman is a wonderful writer, her historical novels are some of my favorites, but one thing kept me from falling completely in love with this story, and it took me a while to put my finger on it. I think that, personally, I was sort of brought out of the story because it focused on too many different characters, it left me hard-pressed to become particularly attached to any of them. And in certain sections she’d be telling the story of a character fleeing arrest by the Germans, and then it would flow into an objective, real fact about the prison those that were arrested that day were sent to, and how many died. While I appreciated the facts as a history buff, it sort of transported me out of the story and back to reality, which was for me not my favorite decision she made. But overall I’d definitely recommend the book to anyone who enjoys WW2 historical fiction.

Thanks for hanging in there everybody, I’ll be back with more regularly scheduled reviews and summaries soon. Hope everyone has a great August ❤

Reviews

The Infinity Courts by Akemi Dawn Bowman (Book 1)

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# of Pages: 465

Time it took me to read: 4 days

# of pages a day to finish in a week: 66

Rating: 3 out of 5

Nami is one night away from the rest of her life. She’s graduating high school, going off to college, and is finally going to get to have a real date with her best friend Finn, who she’s been in love with for years. But all of that gets cut short when she dies on the way to the graduation party.

She wakes up in Infinity, the land where all human consciousness goes after death. Immediately suspicious of the pill she is offered that will send her to paradise, she ends up escaping the facility she is being held in. With the help of the Colony, a small group of people who have also avoided taking “the pill”, she finds out that the afterlife has been hijacked by an AI named Ophelia. She and the other AI “Residents” coerce humans into taking a pill that traps them in their own mind and puts them entirely at the mercy of the Residents. Any humans that resist are captured and sent to torment in the courts of War, Famine, or worst of all Death.

Nami quickly finds that she has the unique ability to infiltrate the Resident society as a spy. But while all the humans in the Colony believe that the AI needs to be destroyed so that humans can have their afterlife, Nami doesn’t think it’s that simple. Will Nami be able to find a solution that protects the humans in the Colony that she has come to love without completely destroying the Residents and their way of life?

Note:

Alright, so I’m normally I’d do my full summary here, since this is the first book in a series that I intend on reading, but the summaries take me a long time to complete, and I truly did not enjoy the book enough to dedicate the time to a summary, so I’m just going to list the cast of characters below before starting my review. This whole bit should be spoiler free, so you can read on without fear.

Cast:

Nami – eighteen year old protagonist. Just graduating from high school, is excited to finally get the chance to date her best friend Finn, who she’s been in love with for years. Her dad is a graphic novelist who wrote a book called Tokyo Circus that is about a cyborg girl who bridges the gap between robots and humans to end a war.

Mei – ten year old sister of Nami. They have grown apart recently, but Nami loves Mei more than anything.

Finn – Best friend of Nami. They’ve been friends forever, but recently confessed their feelings for each other. The graduation party is going to be their first real date.

Gil – member of the Colony in the Court of Victory in Infinity. Doesn’t like Nami from the start, thinks she isn’t committed enough to the cause of destroying the Residents in Infinity and giving it back to humans.

Annika – leader of the Colony. Will do whatever it takes to protect her people, but generally kindhearted and wants to give Nami the chance to help the Colony in the fight against the Residents.

Ahmet – head Engineer of the Colony, his expertise is manipulating Infinity to create things, such as weapons for the Colony. Soft-spoken, passionate person. Encouraging to Nami.

Shura – a girl a little younger than Nami, befriends her right away. Her expertise is veiling, meaning she can hide people or places from the view of the Residents. Adopted daughter of Annika.

Theo – Helps rescue Nami from the Residents when she first arrives in Infinity. His skill is fighting the the Residents. Passionate about helping humans retake Infinity.

Caelan – the Prince of the Court of Victory. One of the AI “children” of Queen Ophelia. Nami’s goal is to spy on him and use the knowledge to help the Colony undermine the residents.

Ophelia – Queen of Infinity, the AI that took over Infinity. She was a virtual assistant widely used by humans like Nami during life.

Review:

Alright, I’m going to start by saying that my rating of 3 out of 5 stars is almost entirely subjective. We read this book for my book club, and I had the lowest rating of the bunch, so I think that I can say that this book is objectively closer to a four, but I really didn’t get much from it, so I kept my rating down at a 3.

As usual, I’m going to start out with what I did like about this book, which was almost exclusively the protagonist. Nami is somewhat unique in the world of YA protagonists because she never really becomes fully influenced in “the cause”. In most YA books that have the theme of “a small group of rebels fight against tyranny and oppression”, most protagonists are usually leading the fight from the start, or they become influenced into joining the cause through either direct pressure from other characters or a critical event.

Nami, from the very start, doesn’t particularly want to be involved in this fight against the Residents. She wants a good afterlife experience for her family, but she is also unable to look at the Residents or even Ophelia herself and see “evil” like the other members of the Colony do. Even when faced with continual, intense peer pressure by her companions, she continues to fight for and believe in an alternative to “one side wins, the other side dies”, and I think that this conviction makes her likable and unique.

The one other thing I will commend is the last twenty to thirty pages or so of the book. I think that she does a really good job of surprising you with the ending, but when you look back you realize the breadcrumbs were there all along, which is always the mark of a strong writer. And since I promised spoiler-free, this is all I’ll say about that.

Alright, now the parts that I didn’t like. I’ll begin with parts of the story I believe were objectively weak. The first being the pacing. I personally felt that I was pretty much snoozing through this book right up until the very end. While I believe a slow build is just fine, if you’re doing a lot of world-building / setup, I think that as a writer your reader isn’t likely to stick around if you keep them waiting for the action until right at the last fifty pages.

I also didn’t like the world-building as much as I wanted to. Definitely an interesting concept, a human afterlife taken over by robots, but besides one line somewhere that says “Ophelia hacked the afterlife”, there is literally NO explanation of HOW an AI (who is by definition a computer and thus code) “hacked” an afterlife that is organic and human? I wasn’t looking for a believable explanation, just some attempt at an explanation would have been nice. Because of this sort of lack of attempt to go into any sort of depth on the technical workings of this afterlife, I never got engaged in the world at all.

Okay, now moving onto the parts that I thought were weak, but that I believe are very much my subjective opinion. Starting off with the cast. This was a somewhat large-cast book, which I can totally be into. However, besides the protagonist, I did not care about a single other character in this entire story. There are a half-dozen members of the Colony that Nami is close with, and I truly didn’t care about a single one of them. Literally any of them could have “died” and I would not have cared. And I’m someone who gets really attached to side characters normally, so I found it really disappointing that I didn’t care for any of them. I mean, I thought they were all good people, but none of them pulled on my heartstrings at all, not even the love interest(s).

Next, I’m just going to say that I may have been pre-biased against this book from pretty much the very beginning because the concept bums. me. out. Like Nami is this nice, normal girl who has a nice family and a boy who is her best friend who she is going to kiss. Then she dies. And the whole book she’s just dead and she’s never going to get the life she deserved. And that just made me depressed from the start. So, conceptually, I was pre-disposed not to like it from the start.

And finally, as a followup to my last point, I think the biggest weakness in my personal, subjective opinion were the complete lack of stakes in this story. I think that, my definition, a book where the characters are already all dead means that the stakes cannot be much lower. Like, there is this general fear of like “oblivion” in the afterlife, but it’s not specific and, to me, didn’t seem that bad. What I LOVE so much about YA is how high the stakes always are. “Save a kingdom”, “Save my family”, “Fulfill my destiny as the chosen one”, etc are all common high-stakes tropes in YA, which are great. Because there is always the risk of capture, torture, or death, and that keeps things exciting and keeps me invested. However, while there’s technically fear of capture or torture, all of these characters are already dead, so why should I care?

After all that, you may ask, why am I going to read the sequel? Well, because particularly the last fifty pages hooked me, and I have to know how this is going to end. Like, the stakes are low, but I just can’t stand not knowing how the overall story is going to end?

I will end this review by saying that I do in fact recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the concept. I think that her writing does objectively get better as the book goes on, and pretty much everyone in my book club really liked it, I’m the odd one out. Most of my friends loved the concept and they also loved the love interest(s) that were at play. So even though this book wasn’t for me, it does have a pretty compelling protagonist and an interesting concept, so check it out if you want!

If you liked The Infinity Courts, try:

Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld