2/5 stars
Synopsis
Warning! This section contains spoilers, if you would like to avoid these spoilers, jump to the review below.
The book’s prologue featured a woman in labor. She gave birth, and instantly fell in love with her baby. But then the woman’s mother stole the baby in order to save her daughter.
In chapter one, the reader is introduced to two characters, Aden and Jin. They were sparring, with Aren doing her best to defeat Jin. Jin used majik however, and won.
Aren talked to her friend Noel, who was a mayj, about majik and he explained why it was a blessing to not have it. Then he asked how many abandoned mayj babies they had found.
Jin prepared for a test to become Krijen, an elite soldier. Aren walked in the city, and felt like someone was watching her. She tried giving food to a beggar but he ignored it, and she thought it was odd.
Jin won his Dance (the test to become krijen), but then his friend had to do the test twice. It was implied Jin used majik to make sure his friend won his Dance.
Aren got caught up in a riot in the streets and was saved by someone who had failed his Dance, becoming Lost.
Jin was sent to the Deadlands for six months. His squad was attacked, and they were losing, but Jin decided he could do more and started harnessing majik. Jin knew he had broken the law, so he was waiting for judgement to fall on him. However, when he talked to his superior, Oji, who said the Great Kahn had granted him a full pardon and that Oji wanted to join his squad.
Jin started helping the people who were injured in the bandit attack on his squad.
He suddenly started seeing the person he had killed during his Dance in the beginning of the book.
There was a large gathering, the Great Kahn asked Oji to join him on a platform, and Oji was attacked and killed by a mayj. Earlier in the book, there was a POV shift where the Great Khan gave orders to that mage to kill Oji. There was chaos and Jin had to harness to help people.
A big fight broke out between the guards and streetling kids. Jin used majik to get his fellow Krijen and the Kahnen (the book’s equivalent to lords and ladies) out of the fighting. The Kahnen wanted to kill him because he was a mayj and was breaking the law.
There was an argument, and the Krijen said that Jin had been pardoned. The Great Kahn had apparently never given that order, but had been superseded by Oji, and he refused to let Oji one-up him so he lied and agreed that he had given Jin a pardon.
Jin was given permission to use majik to hunt down the person who killed Oji.
Oji’s killer followed Aren’s father home. Aren’s family was scared, but Aren went and offered some food to him because she could see he was terrified. They discovered he had been coerced. Soon after that, a squad of Krijen stopped by Aren’s house. They had been ordered to search every house for Oji’s killer. One of the characters said that their house was so prestigious, a streetling would not be there. The Krijen, surprisingly, left without a fuss.
A girl who could absorb majik for some reason realized that her life’s purpose was to jump into the lake the city was by in order to absorb the majik that had been locked away in it. She did so, there was a large explosion that showered everyone with some water drops, and the book ended.
Review
I wish I had liked this book more than I did. It was really hard to get through. I didn’t like how often the point of view changed. With the frequent changes, and the unfamiliar terms for characters, I had a really hard time keeping it all straight. I felt like this book would have been better if the author didn’t change the point of view as much. If she had kept it to two points of view, it would have been much better. The issue with having as many points of view as the author did in this book is that it can be confusing and the reader doesn’t care about the characters. It was annoying for me, and I found it hard to follow the story.
This book could have been made into two books. In the middle of this book, there was a time gap of six months. The author could have taken the first half and expanded it, turning it into its own book. Same thing with the second half. I feel like that would have been better in the long run. The author would have been able to develop the world and characters more. Additionally, it almost felt like I was reading two different books. One about Jin and one about Aren. With random POV shifts scattered throughout. I was hoping that the two storylines would eventually connect and mesh together, but that never happened.
The interactions between Aren and Wren were unnatural. Wren kept asking Aren why she was talking to him, and she wouldn’t answer. The emotions portrayed in the scenes were very chaotic and messy too, and changed frequently. It didn’t feel natural. Wren kept calling her annoying, Aren didn’t like him at all, but they ended up in the bed together. I think the author was trying to go for an enemies to lovers romance with Wren and Aren, but I don’t feel like it worked.
I had some questions about the majik of the world. Majik apparently just built up in mayjen. They had to harness every so often, however, or else they would lose control. Jin had to run away in the middle of the book to release the pent up majik within his chest because it gagged him, and felt like a burning, crushing pain in his chest. One of the punishments for mayjen caught harnessing was cutting off their hands. This made it so they couldn’t harness. However, that didn’t make much sense to me. The majik was channeled and controlled through the hands, yes. But it built up in the chest. It was mentioned that once a mayj’s hands were cut off, they not only lost the abiltiy to harness, but also lost their majik. How does cutting off their hands make it so mayjen no longer have majik if that majik is in their chest?
I thought Jin getting a pardon was really dumb. It took me right out of the story. Throughout the entire book, I was told that being a mayj was reprehensible, that it was immediately punished by death. Jin was terrified of that happening to him throughout the entire story, and it made sense. When he revealed that he had majik, I was excited to see what consequences there would be for him. I was very disappointed and annoyed when he didn’t get a punishment at all. He was able to remain a squad leader, and his superior asked Jin if he could join his squad. Jin broke the law, but instead of being punished, he was…rewarded? That part of the book really did not make sense to me. It would have been better if he had to struggle (for example, he decided to run to escape his fate), and then at the end of the book provide the pardon.
I did not like Aren. She honestly seemed like a bratty twelve year old and I was not sure what her role in the story was. She was Jin’s friend in the beginning, but then he killed his opponent during his Dance, and Aren suddenly hated him. It would have been cool if they resolved their differences, and became close friends again.
I wish the book made a bit more sense. For example, there was no explanation given for why Jin started seeing and having conversations with the person he had killed in his Dance at the beginning of the book. Why was he able to see that person? Why was he able to talk to him? Authors can do what they want in books, on the condition that they provide a logical reason for it. This can be done either through character building or through world building. Some possible explanations for why Jin was able to talk to the person’s spirit: Jin’s majik latched onto the person’s spirit as he was killed, holding him here. The person, seeing as he was a member of a certain ethnic group with its own religion, could have lingered instead of going to the stars because he hadn’t yet completed his purpose. Or, during world building, the author could have made it so that the spirits of people who were unjustly killed would linger, haunting their killers. Those are just a few examples of how the author could have made the interactions between Jin and the person he killed make sense.
The death of Oji was so obviously telegraphed it was almost painful. The Great Kahn talked to the mayj, told him that Oji was the reason he had scars and had been imprisoned, but it was a lie because the Great Khan wanted to get rid of Oji. Jin was talking to Oji, and was bothered by Oji implying that he wouldn’t be around much longer. Then Oji said that all men die. And then Oji died. Those three events were way too close together in my opinion. It made the death of Oji predictable. If you want to have a twist, you need to leave little breadcrumbs throughout the story so that the reader can look back and see how seemingly unrelated things throughout the entire story tie into the twist. The hints to the death of Oji were too obvious. I was not surprised by it. Frequently throughout the book, the same thing happened, and as a result, the events in the story were dull. K. M. Weiland put a post on Facebook on 12/8/2023 that I thought was applicable to this story. The post said “Don’t kill your story’s suspense with multiple POVs.” That’s exactly what the author did to this story. She killed the suspense. I was bored when reading through the book.
The world building was lacking in a few areas. The Unsettlement, and the Turning of mayjen. What was the Unsettlement? I was hoping that there was going to be more information about it and what happened later on in the book, but that information was never provided. The only clue I got was at the end, when the girl who could absorb magic for some reason jumped into the lake the city was built by. She did it to absorb majik that had apparently been locked away within it. This was an important piece of information that the story was missing, because the entire conflict revolved around the Unsettlement. Why were mayjen and majik banned? What happened to the world due to majik? Frequently throughout the book, it was mentioned that the mayjen who used their majik too much were at risk of Turning. What was Turning? Why was it something the people were frightened of? What happened when mayjen Turned? Because Turning was not developed, I was not concerned when mayjen came close to Turning in the book.
Jin being granted a pardon by Oji made me really mad. I was only a little mollified when the end of the book revealed that Oji had lied about Jin being granted a pardon by the Great Kahn. Jin’s actions were witnessed by many people. The Great Kahn somehow never hearing about what happened doesn’t make any sense to me, especially since the Great Kahn was depicted as a controlling leader.
The book started off good, but then it felt like I had to force myself to finish it. Overall, the book was a good first attempt by a new author. I remember my first book…it will never see the light of day. But I keep it around so I can look back and see how far I have come. The skills and knowledge to write books that people enjoy is something that is developed over time. With experience, the author will probably be writing great books. It will be interesting to see how the author improves.
Fireheart Books 