Started: 15/07/21
Finished: 26/07/21
Spoilers: No.
I finished this book days ago, and normally I write my reviews whilst I'm reading, to get down my immediate thoughts. However, I've been struggled to find motivation to review this one. Not because it's a bad book. I'm actually quite interested to continue the series, but I think it's because nothing really stood out to me in a way that made me want to document my reading journey, except for Varo.
Characters
First off we have brother and sister, Gyre and Maya. When I try to think which one of these I liked more, I'm a little at a loss. Neither of them wowed me, to be honest. I don't at all dislike them, but I didn't exactly love them either. They were pretty inoffensive, they got the job done, but will I remember them? Unfortunately, I don't think so. There weren't really any standout qualities to them that defined them against all other characters in the book. Quite often Maya felt interchangeable with Beq in terms of personality. I probably liked Gyre just a little more, just because I prefer siding with rebels over the side of authority, but other than his one blind eye, there wasn't anything crazy interesting about him.
Again they weren't bad characters. But for me, they were both just very vanilla, and vanilla, though a solid and reliable flavour, isn't all that exciting.
I liked Kit at first, but in the end, I just found her ceaseless quips, sarcasm, and inuendos annoying.
Now, let's talk about the most underrated character in the book. I loved Varo and his endless stories of friends of his that had died in varying grim scenarios. After the third story, I came to realise this was a running gag with him and I was living for it. But unfortunately, after a certain point in the book, we just never see him again. Felt like such a waste of a brilliant character with a continuously funny gimmick.
Plot
Not the plot I expected from my impression of the blurb. I imagined slightly older characters for one, not a bunch of teenagers. I imagined brother and sister reuniting after years separated, but now they hate each other, fighting on opposite sides. I pictured brutal sibling standoffs and bloody battles that result in no real winner and only generate more contempt. I anticipated a lot more blind loyalty to their respective sides and a lot more hate and rage towards their opposition/each other, and a bit less teen angst, to be honest.
I'm going to sound like a broken record here, but again, I didn't dislike anything in this book, I guess I just expected a bit more from it. Or maybe I didn't expect more and I simply expected something else entirely. I don't know. I'm a little conflicted with this one, because even after sitting on my thoughts for a few days, there's still nothing in the plot that stands out as particularly memorable for me.
Setting
So I'd had this pegged as fantasy for so long, but this is way more sci-fi in genre. This is barely shelved as a sci-fi book at all on Goodreads and I don't understand that. The world-building alone screams sci-fi utopian/dystopian world in which the elite with their special blaster guns rule absolutely and the poor need to just deal with it or get blasted, basically.
There are some 'magical' elements, but at no point did it feel like magic to me, it felt like science. Like there would always be some logical explanation as to why certain tech existed, or why some people had abilities. It all came from somewhere, which left little air of mystery.
To me, fantasy is defined by magic.
Science-fiction (obviously) is defined by science. (It's right there in the name)
I'm not a big lover of sci-fi, so maybe that's why I couldn't invest as much as I wanted to. It's just not really my jam.
But genre debate aside, the world-building in this book is excellent. It's brilliantly described and I was always able to picture the scenes and world (which in my head was definitively sci-fi-esque) The world and its histories are well-realised and always gives the impression that no matter how much you can learn about this place, there's always more just beneath the surface.
In fact, the world-building itself was one of my favourite parts. Even if the characters didn't fully win me over, this world certainly speaks for itself.
And something I loved, was how queer-normative it was. People could openly love whomever they chose, and I'll never not find that utterly refreshing in a SFF book.
Writing Style
The writing was great. As I mentioned above, the writing was incredibly lush and descriptive in regards to the world. The prose was very smooth and never felt clunky and awkward. Same goes for the dialogue.
I have zero complaints about the writing. Though this book may not exactly be to my tastes, I won't deny that's it's excellently written.
Final Impression
I was hoping I'd like this a lot more, but I didn't dislike it, so I guess that's a win from me. I'll likely continue the series but it won't be jumping to the top of my TBR.