And oh, I will have you know that two star books are the worst to write reviews for. At least with a one star you know you hated everything. But that wasn't truly the case with this book. Because there wasn't anything for me to hate. It was just boring. Nothing happened. I felt nothing for any of the characters. Disappointing.
And so I am unsure what to write about this book. As I feel pretty meh about it all. Wishing I could say the characters were unique and exciting to read about. But they really weren't. This book is told from two point of views, Zivah and Dineas. It takes place in a regular sort of world, just far in the past, it seemed like. They live in different villages and have different beliefs and such. I wish I had found all of this interesting, but I did not. I didn't care about their village or their lives. Or what they were fighting against and such. I just found it to be boring. Sigh. Zivah is a healer in her village, and she has a great family. But I cared nothing for any of it. Her family was just there, in the background. She thinks about them a few times, but I didn't feel a connection, tbh.
And I simply did not care one bit about the healer parts of the book. Probably because I felt like it was written a bit badly. I'm not sure. I just was not able to get lost in this story or care about these characters. Like, Dineas. The book starts with him just having gotten away after being a prisoner of war and being tortured all the time for a whole year. Yet there are only a few flashbacks about it, and they were so tame and boring, and I cared not one bit. It wasn't exciting. It wasn't heartbreaking, like it was supposed to be.
And so I just did not like the main characters at all. I didn't see anything to like about them, sadly. And that made the book even harder for me to finish reading. But the one thing I was curious about was parts of the plot, the rose plague. I wanted to know more about it, but yeah, again I felt like it wasn't written well enough or focused enough on at all. Zivah fell ill, but survived, though she is now rosemarked and fated to die in a few years, and she can never touch anyone healthy, as she would infect them with the plague.
Dineas escaped from the prison because they thought he was dead from the plague, but he wasn't. He survived and ended up with the lighter marks, which means he can't infect anyone and he won't die. I was curious about this plot. And wanted to know more about this plague. But yeah, didn't get to read enough about it at all. Aw. The thing that I didn't like very much about this book at all was the whole memory loss thingy. I guess some will find it exciting and different, but I simply did not. It annoyed me, to be honest.
See, this whole book is about Zivah and Dineas going undercover for their villages. They are sent to the main city in this world, and are supposed to report back on things going on with a war. Sadly this didn't make much sense to me, sending those two young people in there. I didn't find it exciting at all. Because most of the book is just time moving ahead, and nothing happening. Zivah is busy treating patients that are infected. Dineas is busy fighting in the army now. And it was just so incredibly boring to read about.
But back to the memory thing. Since Zivah is a healer, she knows of a venom that makes it possible for a person to control their memories. And so she and Dineas uses this on him. They erase all his memories. Then give them all back again at certain moments in the book, so that he can remember hidden details and such. And so of course Zivah is falling in love with this new Dineas that doesn't remember anything. He isn't angry and broken like the old one, hahaha.. Yeah. I cared nothing for this. At all. Disappointing.
I'm not going to say more about this book. Simply because there isn't anything more to say. I spent the whole book thinking about how boring it was and how I didn't care for the characters or their fight. And that small romance was way too small and weird and I did not approve. Feels like it might be better in book two, so that's good, but yeah, I did not care. I did like some parts of the plot, which is why this is a two star. And because I didn't hate the book. Just felt nothing. Which is worse, to be fully honest. Aw.
Huge thank you to Cassie at Disney Hyperion for letting me reading this book early via NetGalley. I'm glad that I was able to read this book, I just feel so sad that I didn't end up enjoying it. I really wanted to, though. And I'm still going to get my pre-order of this book, as I have already ordered it, and, well. It do look gorgeous. And I am still curious about the second book, as I do wish to know what happens next. But mostly Rosemarked was disappointing for me. I'm curious, though, what others will think of this one.
Aww, sorry you didn't enjoy it, Carina.
ReplyDeleteI decided to read it because I enjoyed the authors previous two books, but I felt the same as you and ended up DNFing. ;(