Oh my Gods, I loved this book so much. Normally when I read I have a notepad next to me and I note down points that I want to mention later. For this book, I made zero notes – I was glued to the story from the very first page.
There are parts of the book that are really difficult to read – it is dark, people. SenLinYu creates an entire civilization of characters and then brutally murders almost all of them.
So some of the notes and general impressions I have from this book.
I really like the fact that The Resistance were not portrayed as perfect. Obviously the side using living people to do mutilating experiments on are the bad guys, but it would have been too easy to make the Eternal Flame some kind of perfect society. Instead it’s made very clear that they sowed the seeds of the war with their racism and hypocrisy. In some ways Luc being such a good person was a big part of Helena’s downfall. She cared so much about the Resistance winning only because she was so close to Luc and his friends.
Back when I was 16 or so I dated a guy who had been part of the revolution in Iran that overthrew the Shah and put Ayatollah Khomeini in power. The way he explained his motivation to me was that the revolt had been about building a better society for everyone but that the hard-line religious conservatives took advantage of the chaos to install a theocracy. I thought about him a lot whenever the plot brought up the involvement of The Guilds in supporting Morrough. They got what they fought for and then very much did not want it once they had it.
I have seen this book referred to as “Gothic fiction” and that absolutely tracks. Kaine Ferron absolutely gives Heathcliffe vibes, he is melodramatic and obsessive and moody and completely off his rocker.
I have to give the book back to library soon but I am highly tempted to put a new hold on it so I can go back and re-read it – even just the first section. It’s obvious from the start that Kaine and Helena have history, but everything from Section One appears in a brand new light when the past is revealed. I think there’s also a lot of use of the unreliable narrator that’s used to make the upcoming plot twists less obvious and it would be fun to ferret them out.
There is mention on the Wikipedia article that the movie rights have been purchased. This would make an incredible movie.