by Bonnie Ferrante
Summary
In a world where eye color may determine your future, Leya is born with one green and one blue eye. Will this diminish her potential or provide the exceptional opportunity to become a Double Vision Mistress?
Even if she fulfills her gifts, Leya must learn to control her impulsiveness and quick temper or she will be stripped of her powers in a painful and crippling ritual. Unfortunately, Zendra, a devious Novice knows exactly how to raise Leya's anger. But the Mistresses, struggling with significant problems of their own, seem blind to Leya's dilemma. How much should she risk in pursuit of power, prestige, and wealth?
This book was formerly titled Desiccate and has gone through another editing
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I was given an ebook from the author in exchange for an honest review. And honest it shall be.
First off, I just want to say that I seriously hate giving bad reviews to books but this needs to be said. I had some strong feelings towards this book and not in a good way.
Might as well rip the band-aid off and get right into it.
This book is not YA, no matter what category the publishers or author claim it to be in. The subject matter is not YA. This should be listed as New Adult.
The main character in this book was very annoying and really hard to connect with. For someone who is seeking to please her family and have a better life, who is use to hard work because of her place in society. You would think that she wouldn't give up so easily. As soon, anything in the school was the least bit difficult she would run the other way. That didn't make any sense to me when in the first chapter she talked about how much she wanted to learn, how much she wanted to change, and how much she wanted to do for her family. I just found her very annoying, bratty, and just not someone I wanted to have as a main character in the book.
Now for the part that really made me angry. The fat-shaming in this book is DISGUSTING. Now I understand that they are part of a school, and girls are mean but this was terrible. Books for me are a place to take me away, live another life, and enjoy myself. But the fat-shaming got to a point where I was angry.
"Good thing," whispered Zendra as she passed the table. "As big as you are, I don't imagine you'll have many suitors"
"Where's Lumpy?" asked Zendra as she walked in front of us. "I can't believe she is going to be late for a meal."
Zendra snorted. "Great, so we'll all be as fat as Lumpy."
There are more instances in the book, but these were the ones I highlighted. I just think if younger girls are reading this (since it is listed as YA) that not only are they being told in in the media, and at school that being fat is wrong but now their place to escape (their books) are telling them that as well. I was disgusted over the fat-shaming and it really turned me off the book. There was no need for it, it had no impact on the story, it would have been excellent without it.
I felt the story jumped around a lot and missed big chunks of things. One minute Leya was in school working on her studies and the next she was graduating. One minute she was getting married and the next she was a widow.
Sadly, there are only really two things I liked about this book, the world building was amazing, I loved the area that author created for us. I also really liked the idea behind the book and how your powers all depend on the colour of your eyes which ranged from Silver, to purple and pink, to blue and green. That was a pretty awesome idea, it could have gone a completely different way and made an amazing high fantasy novel.
I am giving this book a 2 out of 5 because in my opinion it doesn't deserve anything higher. Like I said above I hate down rating books but this is the first time I was so angry about the content in the book.
I still want to thank the author for letting me read it!
2 out of 5!!
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