472 pages
Published 2020
Read from January 10 to 17
Rating: 4 out of 5
In a YA landscape beset with sassy, sarcastic smart-asses who smirk, shrug, scowl, and sneer interchangeably amongst themselves, this book was a welcome find, despite what you might have guessed from its A [Blank] of [Blank] and [Blank] title formula.
Our two leads are an unwilling princess of a colonialist empire and an impoverished refugee fleeing the devastation that empire has wrought. They cross paths on the eve of a festival in the capital city, where the magic that protects the city must be renewed once every fifty years. Karina and Malik have that classic YA thing where it's half will they / won't they fall in love, and half will they / won't they kill each other for Important Plot Reasons. But Brown's assured prose and engrossing worldbuilding keep the story fresh (and also keep Song free of the smirk shrug scowl sneer cycle that plagues so many other YA novels).
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