3.25 stars (because I can't decide whether it's a 3 or a 3.5)

Mare Barrow lives in a world ruled by Silvers. Silvers have special powers and silver blood while the Reds are just normal people like you and me and treated pretty terribly by the ruling Silver class. Through a series of events, Mare finds herself in the front of the royal family and ends up realising that she is something different. Not quite Red but not quite Silver either. Something in between. Now Mare has a foot in the door of the palace, while also lending a helping hand to the rebel cause.

I actually ended up liking this book a lot more than I thought I would. I have seen and read so many mediocre reviews I wasn’t really sure exactly what I would be reading and the bad reviews did end up with me putting this book off for so long so I was glad to hop on the chance of buddy reading it with Cherrie (YouTube/ Cherrie Walker).

To start off with yes, this book is very similar to The Hunger Games in several way from poor girl doing illegal things to help her family survive, a prim and perfect sister who is so much better than she is and a childhood friend who may or may not be in love with her. To be honest, everything about Kilorn screamed Gale, Gale, Gale to me. I actually really enjoy Lainey from GingerReadsLainey’s review on this book and she has a few well-spotted comparisons to other series like Cinder and The Selection which I didn’t pick up on but she’s totally right.

I don’t think the author helped herself in some parts with so many THG similarities, a small rewrite could have hopefully saved them all. Also the line "and even sparks burn” made me cringe so bad because it is basically “if we burn, you burn with us.” The Girl on Fire = Little Lightning Girl.

I did have some problems with Mare as a main character. She didn’t across as particularly anything to me besides being quite whiny and bland. There were a lot of obvious things that screamed out at me that she didn't get and tbh, I don't feel like she actually DID anything for a lot of the book except moan and be like 'Silvers get everything, Reds get nothing, boohoo.' The ‘romance’ was a bit much and seemed too easy. It seemed to happy very quickly. It almost seemed more like a strong friendship, and I would have been okay with that.

BUT with all that said, I actually enjoyed this book. I liked Mare’s introduction to the world of Silvers, I’m a sucker for any story with people with special abilities so I loved learning about them (though the names could have been more original - telkys and greenies, please). The pacing of the story was great and all in all, the whole book has made me want to read the next one, so job done.