by Amanda Foody
rating: ☆☆
published: 7th September 2017
spoilers? yes, big ones
Goodreads
Galley provided by publisher
Quite honestly, this book was a letdown. It was one of those ones that has an amazing idea, and an intriguing synopsis, but when you get down to it, it's just a bit lacking.
It started off so well. There was just the right amount of worldbuilding and plot mixed together, and the characters were interesting and novel. The mystery was introduced early on, and all in all it looked to be heading in the right direction. Sadly, things just went a bit downhill from there on out.
Firstly, there's the romance. It is, frankly, tedious and underdeveloped. Sorina meets Luca about a quarter of the way through the book, and by the halfway point, has effectively fallen in love with him (which covers the timespan of maybe a week or two in the plot). To add to this, he's a dickhead. And there's not much redeeming about him. It's really, really not clear why Sorina at all likes him, beyond for his looks.
Once I found the romance tedious and underdeveloped, I started seeing the plot as a whole as that too. It claims to be a mystery, but there is very little actual investigating that goes on in the narrative - it's all hidden from the protagonist, and all done by Villiam and Luca. Not to mention that whenever Sorina is investigating with one of them, they always take over everything so she ends up doing nothing, actually seeming a bit boring in terms of characterisation in the end. And she believes whatever they tell her (which, fair enough, sets up the finale but doesn't make for that interesting a story for me).
There was also the initial plot twist that Luca was a spy, which I honestly saw coming a mile off. To be fair, I didn't see the rest of it coming, and I was momentarily interested to see whether the author had the guts to stick to Luca being a spy, and not having some deus ex machina moment where it turns out that he's a) framed, or b) redeemed. Unfortunately, she didn't. Then it also turned out that Luca was an illusion too, and yet the romance continues. No offence, but it seems a little... iffy? He claims he's his own person etc, etc, but can that really be confirmed? She can control him because he's an illusion. It seems messy to me. There were definitely some other promising plotlines. The whole part with the Alliance was so interesting, but because it fell outside of the Festival's bounds, it was done away with in a quiet manner, which was disappointing. I also love when authors slot in some diversity, almost as an afterthought. Sorina is bisexual, but it's only mentioned once at the beginning and then never touched on again. It would be nice to see some evidence of that in the text. Even worse for me though was the mention that came about 85% through about her anxiety,
"How could I possible lead Gomorrah when I can't even protect my family? When my anxiety threatens to send me into a panic every night?"Which had never previously been shown in the book, let alone mentioned. So, apologies for not considering this to be good rep. My least favourite thing about this book was the whole "it makes sense he likes her because only a "freak" can like another "freak" in that way" narrative. She actually twice says something along these lines, the second case of which is:
"He was made to love me. That's the explanation. Only someone forced to could actually love a freak like me."Given that she's a "freak" in part because of a physical disability, I'm really really uncomfortable with this rhetoric. And, guess what, it's never called out or challenged. She's just allowed to think that. I did like one thing about this book: there was some diversity in sexualities. As previously mentioned, Sorina is bisexual, but Nicoleta is also a lesbian. As well as that, Luca is demi. So it's a more interesting foundation than other fantasy books I've read recently, but it's really only ever mentioned, and I kind of need more than that. So overall, I was disappointed by this book. It promised so much, but in the end returned so little.
