4.5 stars rounded up!
My friend, Ren, said she really liked this arc, so I was pretty excited to read it.
And let me tell you, it didn't disappoint! While the reveals were pretty obvious (nothing really surprised me, but YMMV), this was still a fun read.
One caveat though, it's been a few days since I've finished the arc, and I'm still not sure how I feel about the ending, which is why this isn't a perfect 5 stars.
I love how Nhika feels like a real, fully-fleshed out character instead of the typical strong female YA Chosen One trope. (I mean, she's technically a Chosen One, but it isn't in-your-face or mentioned all of the time to the point of exhaustion.) She's a very young adult, and she reads like one too. The choices she makes are reasonable for someone who grew up as part of a minority group whose family sought refuge in a neutral country when their homeland was ravaged by a colonizing nation.
For a YA novel, I think it does a really great job touching on issues such as classism (Nhika's life in poverty before the Congmis employ her), Othering (Nhika's Yarongese features, which separates her from the people of Theumas), and the diaspora experience (Nhika vs. Kochin's experiences as a mixed Yarongese person, plus their different schools of heartsoothing).
I hope we get to explore more of the world's geopolitics in the second book. We get enough to understand the situation with Nhika's people and the countries at large, but nothing more.
The novel does a really great job when it comes to Nhika's generational trauma. While she was born in Theumas, her mother and grandmother were originally from Yarong, which was colonized by Daltanny.
Her generational trauma and Yarongese diaspora experiences are clearly expressed in her yearning for a homeland she's never seen before or been to, and her desire to learn heartsoothing from a proper teacher. Her grandmother only had old textbooks to teach her with, and when Nhika is exposed to Theuman medicine and research, she realizes that her knowledge is sorely lacking. And since her people were murdered in a genocide, this knowledge is lost forever.
Here's a quote that really spoke to me:
"Surely, he didn't see heartsoothing the same way she did, because how could he? How could he understand that it was her connection to her lost family, a culture she’d never had the privilege of truly knowing? How could he know how it felt to soothe, to connect to someone so intimately, not a mere substitute for empathy but a step above it? How could he see that it was not some magic she could switch on and off at whim, but a permanent fixture of her identity?"
(Quote taken from the arc and might be subject to change.)
While I appreciate the similarities and contrasts between Nhika and Kochin, and their romance wasn't the worst thing I've ever read lol, I'm still not entirely sold on the ending. No spoilers, but since this is a duology, I'm hoping for more Nhika in the second book. Kochin's all right, I guess.
Anyway, Vanessa Le is a new author that I'm excited to read more of! I'm very eager to read the second book and anything else that she writes.
Thank you to Roaring Brook Press and NetGalley for this arc.
My friend, Ren, said she really liked this arc, so I was pretty excited to read it.
And let me tell you, it didn't disappoint! While the reveals were pretty obvious (nothing really surprised me, but YMMV), this was still a fun read.
One caveat though, it's been a few days since I've finished the arc, and I'm still not sure how I feel about the ending, which is why this isn't a perfect 5 stars.
I love how Nhika feels like a real, fully-fleshed out character instead of the typical strong female YA Chosen One trope. (I mean, she's technically a Chosen One, but it isn't in-your-face or mentioned all of the time to the point of exhaustion.) She's a very young adult, and she reads like one too. The choices she makes are reasonable for someone who grew up as part of a minority group whose family sought refuge in a neutral country when their homeland was ravaged by a colonizing nation.
For a YA novel, I think it does a really great job touching on issues such as classism (Nhika's life in poverty before the Congmis employ her), Othering (Nhika's Yarongese features, which separates her from the people of Theumas), and the diaspora experience (Nhika vs. Kochin's experiences as a mixed Yarongese person, plus their different schools of heartsoothing).
I hope we get to explore more of the world's geopolitics in the second book. We get enough to understand the situation with Nhika's people and the countries at large, but nothing more.
The novel does a really great job when it comes to Nhika's generational trauma. While she was born in Theumas, her mother and grandmother were originally from Yarong, which was colonized by Daltanny.
Her generational trauma and Yarongese diaspora experiences are clearly expressed in her yearning for a homeland she's never seen before or been to, and her desire to learn heartsoothing from a proper teacher. Her grandmother only had old textbooks to teach her with, and when Nhika is exposed to Theuman medicine and research, she realizes that her knowledge is sorely lacking. And since her people were murdered in a genocide, this knowledge is lost forever.
Here's a quote that really spoke to me:
"Surely, he didn't see heartsoothing the same way she did, because how could he? How could he understand that it was her connection to her lost family, a culture she’d never had the privilege of truly knowing? How could he know how it felt to soothe, to connect to someone so intimately, not a mere substitute for empathy but a step above it? How could he see that it was not some magic she could switch on and off at whim, but a permanent fixture of her identity?"
(Quote taken from the arc and might be subject to change.)
While I appreciate the similarities and contrasts between Nhika and Kochin, and their romance wasn't the worst thing I've ever read lol, I'm still not entirely sold on the ending. No spoilers, but since this is a duology, I'm hoping for more Nhika in the second book. Kochin's all right, I guess.
Anyway, Vanessa Le is a new author that I'm excited to read more of! I'm very eager to read the second book and anything else that she writes.
Thank you to Roaring Brook Press and NetGalley for this arc.