Even those readers who adore misery and squalor might find this a bit much.
A grimdark fantasy debut opens with the 6-year-old heroine’s mother stabbing her through the heart, and it’s all downhill from there.
Now a teenager, Faris steals and brawls to support her drunkard father and little sister in their totalitarian homeland. After a botched escape attempt, her lover is executed and her sister enslaved; Faris herself is manipulated into a spell binding her to the ambitious princess Bryn, who plans a treasonous foray into a neighboring kingdom, blighted by a plague that’s turned the populace into magic-addicted cannibals. They soon join forces with the enigmatic magician North, whose dark secrets may hold the key to their mission. The present-tense narrator Faris is admirable in her ferocious determination, but her constant rage, hatred, and self-loathing become wearying. Bryn proves a marvelous villain, all cruelty and confidence; North serves mostly to suffer nobly and to fall instantly, madly, and inexplicably in love with Faris. Overwrought prose with a tin ear for metaphor propels the mostly repellent characters through a muddled, convoluted plot. The world seems the generic fantasy default-white pseudo-Renaissance Europe, albeit with jarring anachronistic touches; the magic system is likewise confusing. The headlong pace of the narrative keeps the pages turning but makes the final chapter less a cliffhanger than an abrupt fracture of the storyline.
Even those readers who adore misery and squalor might find this a bit much. (Fantasy. 14-adult)Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-7199-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
Will appeal to fans of fast-moving fantasy adventures.
Pledged to each other since childhood, Adraa and Jatin navigate the complex politics of their respective kingdoms.
Adraa is the heir to Belwar, and while powerful in most types of magic, she has yet to take the royal ceremony to prove her competency in all nine forms and, with it, her right to someday rule. With half its population Untouched by the Gods—unable to use magic—Belwar struggles with inequities between the Touched and Untouched, reminiscent of societal class divisions. Adraa’s strong sense of duty to her people leads her to fight against the corruption within her kingdom. Jatin, heir to their more magical neighbor Naupure, has spent years polishing his nine colors of magic at the academy, away from the realities of ruling. He and Adraa compare their magical prowess and progress through letters. When Jatin finally leaves the academy, a series of mishaps results in both of them hiding their true identities even as they grow closer in their fight against a ruthless gang. This intricate world with magic-fueled, action-packed fight scenes and snarky, colloquial banter is loosely infused with Asian Indian cultural references. The story also discusses questions of gender inequality, freedom, self-worth, and identity. Adraa and Jatin both have black hair; in contrast to the cover image, the text makes clear that Adraa is very dark-skinned while Jatin has lighter brown skin.
Will appeal to fans of fast-moving fantasy adventures. (deities and their powers, author’s note) (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-12421-5
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Aug. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
A rare second volume that surpasses the first, with, happily, more intrigue and passion still to come.
A heady blend of courtly double-crossing, Faerie lore, and toxic attraction swirls together in the sequel to The Cruel Prince (2018).
Five months after engineering a coup, human teen Jude is starting to feel the strain of secretly controlling King Cardan and running his Faerie kingdom. Jude’s self-loathing and anger at the traumatic events of her childhood (her Faerie “dad” killed her parents, and Faerie is not a particularly easy place even for the best-adjusted human) drive her ambition, which is tempered by her desire to make the world she loves and hates a little fairer. Much of the story revolves around plotting (the Queen of the Undersea wants the throne; Jude’s Faerie father wants power; Jude’s twin, Taryn, wants her Faerie betrothed by her side), but the underlying tension—sexual and political—between Jude and Cardan also takes some unexpected twists. Black’s writing is both contemporary and classic; her world is, at this point, intensely well-realized, so that some plot twists seem almost inevitable. Faerie is a strange place where immortal, multihued, multiformed denizens can’t lie but can twist everything; Jude—who can lie—is an outlier, and her first-person, present-tense narration reveals more than she would choose. With curly dark brown hair, Jude and Taryn are never identified by race in human terms.
A rare second volume that surpasses the first, with, happily, more intrigue and passion still to come. (map) (Fantasy. 14-adult)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-31035-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
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