author: Rosalyn Eves
pages: 416
format: eARC
buy it: Amazon | B&N | Goodreads
rating: 2/5 (from hated to loved) or 3/10 (all books I've ever read)
Sixteen-year-old Anna Arden is barred from society by a defect of blood. Though her family is part of the Luminate, powerful users of magic, she is Barren, unable to perform the simplest spells. Anna would do anything to belong. But her fate takes another course when, after inadvertently breaking her sister’s debutante spell—an important chance for a highborn young woman to show her prowess with magic—Anna finds herself exiled to her family’s once powerful but now crumbling native Hungary.
Her life might well be over.
In Hungary, Anna discovers that nothing is quite as it seems. Not the people around her, from her aloof cousin Noémi to the fierce and handsome Romani Gábor. Not the society she’s known all her life, for discontent with the Luminate is sweeping the land. And not her lack of magic. Isolated from the only world she cares about, Anna still can’t seem to stop herself from breaking spells.
As rebellion spreads across the region, Anna’s unique ability becomes the catalyst everyone is seeking. In the company of nobles, revolutionaries, and Romanies, Anna must choose: deny her unique power and cling to the life she’s always wanted, or embrace her ability and change that world forever.
This book…oh, it was so close to being something cool.
And it dropped the ball on various fronts, alas. Partly because the main
character’s plot was dull, and partly because the side characters were super interesting and yet remained side
characters.
I was pretty intrigued by the set-up of this book, and I
was highly invested in the interpersonal/family drama going on. I loved Anna’s
predicament, her anger at it, her determination to find a place for herself in
a society that kept trying to force her out. I loved the friction between her
and her family/her sister, the jerkass boy, the drama, it was great.
And then they went to Hungary, and the conflict setting
went much wider than one girl and her
family, and…well, I’ll put it this way: I had no problems with Anna as a
character, but I had a lot of problems with Anna as a protagonist to this
particular story. It’s a story about revolution and oppression and fighting
back and all that, but Anna is an outsider with no skin in the game other than
what she puts in voluntarily. And, to be frank, she doesn’t volunteer much. She
says she loves her ‘adopted’ country, but in terms of putting actions to those
words…meh. On the other hand, everyone around her is super invested in plotting
their rebellion, in reviving or protecting their culture, and there’s all sorts
of messy in-group fighting and plots and machinations and and and….and it’s all
in the corners, visible only when Anna deigns to leave her big fancy house.
Anna, for her part, finds out she has this cool magic and never once bothers to test it, experiment with it, or literally do
anything at all with it. She finds out she can undo spells, has someone ask her
to undo the BIGGEST SPELL EVER, and then…waffles about deciding. Doesn’t do a
lick of work to see if she can or not, or figure out how her powers work.
Just…snoozefest. Just like she finds out there’s a rebellion brewing and her
first, last, and only contribution is to sit in a pub and watch people talk
about it.
Anna would have been perfectly serviceable as a
bitter-but-determined troublemaker with family problems, but as a
revolutionary, I really wanted to follow the people actually revolting. I guess I’m just funny that way.
Additionally, I was highly
uncomfortable with Anna’s relationship with a Romani boy named Gabor. A huge
chunk of the book is about how the Romani were basically on the bottom-rung of
the shit-upon ladder, and how the Hungarians were being oppressed by Austria
but then turned around and passed that on down to the Romani without even
blinking. And then here comes Anna, she of the riches and privilege, a
noble-class girl who can literally pack up and leave the country if she wants,
and the book tries to put her on the same level of oppression as Gabor. There’s
whole scenes of Anna trying to compare her own situation to that of the Romani,
and even a scene where she does one random nice big gesture so Gabor will be
all “ah, she’s one of the good white
folks, I guess I can’t be mad at her now.” It…um…no. Just no. It’s not like an
Anna/Gabor type romance can’t happen, but not when you ignore all of the Anna’s
privilege and position and try to claim any level of hardship is the same as
all other levels as well.
The writing was evocative and the setting and mythology
interesting, the magic system interesting as well. In fact, the magic system
was the only thing that kept me reading until the end. But overall, I’m not
sure I would suggest it. The majority of the book just doesn’t stand up to its
own promises or strong opening.
in a sentence
Smooth writing and an interesting premise doesn't save the plot from a heroine who is largely removed from the best part of the conflict.
rating
will i read this author again? Maybe
will i continue the series? I'll wait to see what reviews are like for the second book. Not as an ARC read again, though.
Note:
I received this copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest
review. The price of the book and its origin in no way affected my
stated opinions.
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