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Sometimes, "YA" is used as a pejorative. This is bad because 1. books that are actually in that genre can be pretty different from each other, and 2. the tropes that it can be a shorthand for (first-person POV, female lead, romance as a major plot point) aren't bad in and of themselves, so it comes across as men complaining about women. Unfortunately, the prose in this particular book is often at the level of "YA as a pejorative."
Premise: there's an evil king who made a pact with a witch to gain immortality, which he has to renew by eating a hundred souls during a specific month every year. He gets these souls by making it a contest--people who sign away their souls get a prediction of their potential deaths, delivered by the descendants of the original witch, and if they survive halfway through the month, they can be safe and get rewarded with riches/boons. Anyone who keeps going after that has the chance to steal immortality from the king if they survive to the end of the month, but most people don't want to take that risk. Well, a young soldier (Nox) trying to avenge his father, who was murdered by the king's cruelty, decides he wants a chance at assassinating the king. The apprentice witch (Selestra) is told to foresee his death, but winds up seeing herself dying in the vision as well. So now their fates are bound up together.
At first, Nox' narration is amusing and quippy.
Selestra's family gets their magic because they're descended from a goddess, Asclepina, who has an important connection to snakes. This is a direct allusion to ancient Greek mythology and lore--and in this case, I feel like, it fits! Asclepius isn't a common-enough name to throw me out of the story, and the snake symbolism provides plenty of narrative opportunity:
Unfortunately, I found some of the allusions to be clumsier. The opening map depicts the "Six Isles" of the book's setting: Vasiliádes, Polemistés, Armonía, Nekrós, Flóga, and Thavma. Vasiliádes is where the king's palace is. Polemistés is full of great warriors. Armonía is always in balance with nature. (The book is mostly set on these three, we only hear about the others offscreen.) Okay, we get it!
Additionally, some of the language that the narrative uses feels very modern and not secondary-world in tone. Someone's words hit like a "bullet." The king manipulates people like "chess pieces." Nox joins the army, like his father, so the king refers to him as "a legacy"--as in, legacy student? That phrasing is jarring and not very fantasy-Ancient-Greece to me. [Also, this is the king who murdered the father for plotting against him. I feel like I would not keep reminding the kid of his family's history of military service. That has to be somewhere on the Evil Overlord List, right?]
When they're walking through a haunted forest: "I can see the moon, peeking through a line of dark clouds, which hide any chance of stars." Next page: "We walk for a while, long enough for the night to turn to something darker. The moon is dim and smudged overhead." Page after that: "I marvel as the great creature sweeps through the sky, weaving in and out of the stars." What? Maybe I'm being picky, but the more I read, the more I felt like it could use some low-level editing.
At a higher level, the romance plot--while not a bad thing in and of itself--did feel kind of formulaic and tropey. Like, they're snarking at each other even though they don't have much of a reason to dislike each other, they just assume they're on opposite sides. Selestra has knowledge about Nox's family that's important to him (this reveal was early, but one of those "oh I should have seen it coming, nice" swerves, credit there), but they fail to communicate, and there's a lot of angst that could be cleared up with a simple conversation. Selestra is so sad because she's never seen the world outside of her tower before and now she's on an adventure, what will happen, we just don't know.
There's a theme that emerges near the end about "we shouldn't be defined by the things our family has done in the past, we have the chance to make a better future," and like, that is an important theme and one worth underlining! Is Nox really on this quest because he wants to, or does he resent his dad for dying on him and making him feel like he has no choice but to try killing the king? Does Selestra's mother truly believe in what the king's doing, or does she just feel like it's too late for her to change? These are interesting questions, they just get drowned under the "tropey enemies to lovers" stuff.
I saw some writeups suggesting it had been advertised as a retelling of Rapunzel, but I would say the parallels are not particularly significant--Selestra spends her early years trapped in a tower and has long hair (but not long enough to climb). Likewise, it may be set in the world of an earlier novel by Christo, but that didn't feel at all relevant. (I really wanted to find a standalone, it seems like a lot of YA is not.)
Bingo: Title with a Title, Young Adult, Queernorm (Selestra's best friend is bi), Coastal/Island Setting. You could make the case for Myths and Retellings, but I personally wouldn't.
Premise: there's an evil king who made a pact with a witch to gain immortality, which he has to renew by eating a hundred souls during a specific month every year. He gets these souls by making it a contest--people who sign away their souls get a prediction of their potential deaths, delivered by the descendants of the original witch, and if they survive halfway through the month, they can be safe and get rewarded with riches/boons. Anyone who keeps going after that has the chance to steal immortality from the king if they survive to the end of the month, but most people don't want to take that risk. Well, a young soldier (Nox) trying to avenge his father, who was murdered by the king's cruelty, decides he wants a chance at assassinating the king. The apprentice witch (Selestra) is told to foresee his death, but winds up seeing herself dying in the vision as well. So now their fates are bound up together.
At first, Nox' narration is amusing and quippy.
Somniatis witches are snakes.
Shedding their skin and building themselves anew...
...I bow, quickly, in place of driving my sword through the king's chest. It seems the more polite option and the blow would be wasted on an immortal anyway...
...When we're not at war, Last Army soldiers act as enforcers for the king, and it doesn't exactly make us popular on the streets, despite my winning personality.
In contrast, Selestra's POV is more self-pitying; she has access to power and magic, but she lives locked in a tower, and can't even make direct physical contact with people because it might trigger her visions of death. ("Woobie is touch-starved because of magic" is a trope with a very different backstory in Foundryside!)Shedding their skin and building themselves anew...
...I bow, quickly, in place of driving my sword through the king's chest. It seems the more polite option and the blow would be wasted on an immortal anyway...
...When we're not at war, Last Army soldiers act as enforcers for the king, and it doesn't exactly make us popular on the streets, despite my winning personality.
Selestra's family gets their magic because they're descended from a goddess, Asclepina, who has an important connection to snakes. This is a direct allusion to ancient Greek mythology and lore--and in this case, I feel like, it fits! Asclepius isn't a common-enough name to throw me out of the story, and the snake symbolism provides plenty of narrative opportunity:
It is striped black and yellow, like the lines of night and day. The two sides of the world. Of the good magic my family once had and the dark magic we use now...
...The king made my family into deadly things too.
Stuff like this is a little heavy-handed, but it works for me....The king made my family into deadly things too.
Unfortunately, I found some of the allusions to be clumsier. The opening map depicts the "Six Isles" of the book's setting: Vasiliádes, Polemistés, Armonía, Nekrós, Flóga, and Thavma. Vasiliádes is where the king's palace is. Polemistés is full of great warriors. Armonía is always in balance with nature. (The book is mostly set on these three, we only hear about the others offscreen.) Okay, we get it!
Additionally, some of the language that the narrative uses feels very modern and not secondary-world in tone. Someone's words hit like a "bullet." The king manipulates people like "chess pieces." Nox joins the army, like his father, so the king refers to him as "a legacy"--as in, legacy student? That phrasing is jarring and not very fantasy-Ancient-Greece to me. [Also, this is the king who murdered the father for plotting against him. I feel like I would not keep reminding the kid of his family's history of military service. That has to be somewhere on the Evil Overlord List, right?]
When they're walking through a haunted forest: "I can see the moon, peeking through a line of dark clouds, which hide any chance of stars." Next page: "We walk for a while, long enough for the night to turn to something darker. The moon is dim and smudged overhead." Page after that: "I marvel as the great creature sweeps through the sky, weaving in and out of the stars." What? Maybe I'm being picky, but the more I read, the more I felt like it could use some low-level editing.
At a higher level, the romance plot--while not a bad thing in and of itself--did feel kind of formulaic and tropey. Like, they're snarking at each other even though they don't have much of a reason to dislike each other, they just assume they're on opposite sides. Selestra has knowledge about Nox's family that's important to him (this reveal was early, but one of those "oh I should have seen it coming, nice" swerves, credit there), but they fail to communicate, and there's a lot of angst that could be cleared up with a simple conversation. Selestra is so sad because she's never seen the world outside of her tower before and now she's on an adventure, what will happen, we just don't know.
There's a theme that emerges near the end about "we shouldn't be defined by the things our family has done in the past, we have the chance to make a better future," and like, that is an important theme and one worth underlining! Is Nox really on this quest because he wants to, or does he resent his dad for dying on him and making him feel like he has no choice but to try killing the king? Does Selestra's mother truly believe in what the king's doing, or does she just feel like it's too late for her to change? These are interesting questions, they just get drowned under the "tropey enemies to lovers" stuff.
I saw some writeups suggesting it had been advertised as a retelling of Rapunzel, but I would say the parallels are not particularly significant--Selestra spends her early years trapped in a tower and has long hair (but not long enough to climb). Likewise, it may be set in the world of an earlier novel by Christo, but that didn't feel at all relevant. (I really wanted to find a standalone, it seems like a lot of YA is not.)
Bingo: Title with a Title, Young Adult, Queernorm (Selestra's best friend is bi), Coastal/Island Setting. You could make the case for Myths and Retellings, but I personally wouldn't.
