on
3.5/5
Non-Fiction
- Get link
- Other Apps
Rating: 3.5/5
Pages: 374
Started: 6 June 2023
Finished: 7 June 2023
Summary:
Lily's allergies make every-day living life-threatening. During an especially bad reaction, Lily finds herself transported to another world. There, her sensitivities are signifiers of power--Lily is a witch. But the version of her who belongs to this other world has become a tyrant, murdering scientists and closing herself off from anyone who ever loved her to engage in cruel schemes against the population not living under her iron-fisted rule. With the help of Rowan, tyrant-Lillian's ex-adviser and ex-boyfriend, Lily must master her own magic in order to bring security, stability, and peace back to the world.
Thoughts:
I have not read a mid-2010s fantasy/dystopian YA book in a while, and I had forgotten how much I enjoy them. This was not a masterfully executed book, but I had fun reading it all the same. It was very classically YA in its writing and its protagonist, who was a projectable girl, regular and suffering, who discovers she has more power than she ever could have imagined. She didn't have much personality, but I always find projectable heroes fun to read.
The writing was unimpressive, even frustrating at times. There was a lot of stacking of short, direct sentences that made reading a bit painful, and the entire book was missing any real beautiful or emotional description. But this was 2014 YA. They were not looking for Shakespeare, so I'm not sure I can blame the author or the publisher for not changing it.
The book also followed the hero's journey pretty well, with the entrance into the other world, and the mentor (though he was also arguably the maiden). The inclusion of elements of witchery by way of Salem was very cool; Trial by Fire, and the so-called ending, were both references to the Witch Trials.
I think the book's biggest strength was its world-building. The magic system was complex and fun to read, and because of the projectable protagonist, I got to feel like the most powerful person in the world, which I always enjoy. The fact that we had a powerful main character and a love interest named Rowan did create an automatic comparison to Throne of Glass, which is unfortunate because I believe TOG is unbeatable in its genre in terms of chemistry and power. But for the time I was able to push that aside, I had a lot of fun with this book, and I am already looking for a cheap copy of the sequel.