GIFTED / Hi guys, today I wanted to introduce you to a series I started this year, and plan to continue. Maybe you’ve already heard about it, as it was hyped around it’s release, and if you ask me, it was hyped for a reason.
Unfortunately, I feel like the talk is not so loud anymore, so I wanted to give it a shout.
The Gilded Ones was published this year on February 9th and it has 432 pages. I want to thank Penguin Global and Delacorte Press for inviting me to read and review this title.
About the book:
FROM GOODREADS/
Sixteen-year-old Deka lives in fear and anticipation of the blood ceremony that will determine whether she will become a member of her village. Already different from everyone else because of her unnatural intuition, Deka prays for red blood so she can finally feel like she belongs.
But on the day of the ceremony, her blood runs gold, the color of impurity–and Deka knows she will face a consequence worse than death.
Then a mysterious woman comes to her with a choice: stay in the village and submit to her fate, or leave to fight for the emperor in an army of girls just like her. They are called alaki–near-immortals with rare gifts. And they are the only ones who can stop the empire’s greatest threat.
Knowing the dangers that lie ahead yet yearning for acceptance, Deka decides to leave the only life she’s ever known. But as she journeys to the capital to train for the biggest battle of her life, she will discover that the great walled city holds many surprises. Nothing and no one are quite what they seem to be–not even Deka herself.
Review:
I feel like the cover for The Gilded Ones is everywhere lately. Every day I see it on my Goodreads feed, booktubers and bookstagrammers promote it, twitter, blogs, you name it…so… I also wanted to be part of that train gang.
I can proudly say that the hype surrounding this novel is well deserved. This was really good story, with good representation and message, that was also very enjoyable and entertaining.
If you know me, you know that the most important things to me, when it comes to books and stories, are characters.
The Gilded Ones has variety of interesting characters that I got to know through a story and by the end of the novel, I found myself truly caring about them, so I am really looking forward to read about them in future installments.
The world building was done great. It was so easy for me to imagine all the palces, jungles and deserts in the story.
I like to read fantasy from time to time, but I don’t consider myself an expert in this genre, however, I do feel like I can say that the author did a good job introducing this world, with all the history and present events.
The story was easy to read, thanks to a good, simple but rich writing style.
The end was good, and even better introduction to next book in the series.
I was really fascinated with one event that was mentioned closer to the end of the book, when one character described what happened in the past. I won’t say more about it bc it would be a spoiler, but I will stress out that it impacted me the most, because I never came across to something similar in my reading life.
I also want to quickly mention how the main event or purpose in the story passed so quickly and after so much preparation surrounding it, it was resolved so easily and I expected more obstacles.
The Gilded Ones is good book about feminism, impacted by author’s own experience and authenticity.
It also represented diversity, the are POC characters, lqbtq+ characters (I should stress out that for now only sapphic relationship was mentioned, but I feel there’s space for more representations in sequels).
There are also some references and mentions of sexual abuse, so be aware of that.
I also want to emphasize how The Gilded Ones can provoke great discussion, so I encourage you to reading in book clubs.
Of course, reading it in your own company has it’s benefits too.
To make it short, I recommend you to read it.
Book Dust Magic 