āž¼ "The Darkening" follows 17 year old Vesper. She is the daughter of two people who fought in a revolution against the current regime (a monarchy led by a "Regia"). Her world is plagued by what they call "The Storm" - a massive thunderstorm of dark clouds that surrounds them. The Storm is slowly growing and taking parts of the world into it. She lives in the 5th ring (the ring closest to the edge of The Storm, since the loss of the 6th ring - also the poorest ring with the most sick people) with her father as he hides from the Regia. Her mother was captured during the revolution and chose to walk into The Storm instead of be killed. She never came out.


Things I liked:
ā€£ I LOVED this world that we are dropped into. The vibes felt like reading a 2012-era book (THG, Divergent, The Maze Runner). The magic system seems to take from alchemy - they call it "ikonomancy" where they draw a series of lines/circles (ikons) that each mean different things, and can make different things happen when complete.
ā€£ I loved Vesper's constant need to be better, no matter how many times it backfires for her. I also loved seeing her come into her own as the story progressed. (however, am I toxic for wishing she would go full villain mode?)
ā€£ I loved Casvian when he became his own character and not just the asshole in the background.


Things I didnā€™t like:
ā€£ The pacing in this book was BRUTAL. It took me so long to read and I think it's just because sometimes the book would hit a wall and just be downright boring. The pacing was like a bad rollercoaster - a handful of chapters that were really exciting and fun, and then too many chapters where not a lot would happen at all.
ā€£ Not necessarily a dislike, but I wish that the quieter chapters would have given us more bonding/friendship scenes with Vesper/Izamal/Dalca/Casvian. I feel like there was SO much potential there for a really fun "found family" dynamic and I'm so sad that we didn't get as much as I hoped. My favorite scenes were absolutely when everyone was interacting with each other (especially the bickering between Izamal and Casvian).
ā€£ Dalca's constant flipflopping between how he treats Vesper, and ultimately, the ending. SLIGHT SPOILER- but I was hoping that the hatred they were feeling at the end was going to give us an "enemies to lovers" story in the next book, but I guess not. :( I think that would have made for a super interesting story, especially since you can kind of guess that they will have to rule together as two Regia. ( )

This dystopian story gripped me from the beginning. Survival vs Suffering
A level of magic (ikonomancy) and gods that fits seamlessly into a story of social justice.
Towards the end of the book it does seem like the author was trying to squeeze in last thoughts, but the story itself is creative, detailed, nuanced, and just interesting in the best possible way.

Ebook provided by NetGalley ( )

3.5 ā­ļø
This book was actually pretty decent. It loses half a star because the constant back and forth love hate relationship between the mc and the prince was nauseating. Other than that this book has some pretty unique and solid world building. It's not often that ya books explore "magic" as in depth as this one does. So that was refreshing. The other reason I think it stands out from the generic ya fantasy genre is the fact that I had to pay attention to it to understand what was happening. It wasn't cut and paste so I couldn't skim read this book at all, or else I'd not understand what was happening. ( )

Was definitely pretty cool! Not as great as I wanted it to be (probably because the marketing was SO good) but overall I enjoyed it and will read the sequel. ( )

This has potential - but lacked the follow through.
Nothing was really explained regarding the world or magic - so many unanswered questions.
The only character I liked was Iz.
There was no chemistry between the protagonist and the love interest - I was not invested in their ā€œrelationshipā€ at all.
The ending is so confusing - all that build up to just have it end with no explanation? ( )