Thank you to NetGalley for providing me an ARC of this audiobook for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

DAMN, VERONICA ROTH!

GUYS.
I must admit, I completely hated the Divergent series. A lot. I really cannot begin to go into all the negative emotions I feel about it. I saw the cover of this book and thought it was nice, saw Veronica Roth's name on the cover, and was like oh..... no. But I read the description anyways and was like hmmmmm, this does sound up my alley though, so maybe I'll give Mrs. Roth another try.

THIS BOOK FLOORED ME. I don't think I'll ever be over how incredible the world-building is (evil holy knights with swords in their SPINES???) and how fantastic the characters are. I got so attached to them over the course of the book. It's incredible how much depth (character growth, world-building, etc) was packed into such a short story.

All this to say, I've learned you can't judge an author based on their first book series. I really need to check out more of Mrs. Roth's repertoire it seems!

A note on the audiobook: As much as I loved this story, I HATED the audiobook version. It seems as though the three narrators did not have consistency among their accents (one gave Nico a Polish accent and the other two didn't). I also disliked Nico's narrator immensely as his voice felt very flat compared to the other two. I would not recommend the audiobook as it is, but I would HELLA recommend the paper copy.

Publication Date: 14 May 2024