Thank you to NetGalley, The Parliament House, and Kayvion Lewis for an ARC of this book. Everything in this review is my own.
This book gave me major Red Queen vibes and I appreciated that a lot. The book follows Evie, a half-class citizen as she tries to overthrow the current class system set in place by the monarchy along with a group of rebels. She wants out of the life she knows currently, wants better for herself and all of the other half-class people, and doesn’t feel like people need to be classified based on the color of their skin or their birth. (US societal issues anyone? I was HERE FOR IT!) There are light class people (elite) and dark class people (lower class but still ok if they were pure) and then artificial light or dark – meaning they were a mix of light and dark class parents. Evie gets used and abused throughout this book as she works for her cause, and while I had issues with some of her decisions I can’t necessarily say I would make different ones in her shoes – I don’t know what I would have done in her shoes. As I drew closer to the end I realized that the book was going to end on a massive cliffhanger and I was not ok with it, and sure enough this is listed as book 1 but I see no evidence of book 2 yet, so this is my formal petition for book 2 to be shown as in production of some kind soon. I really did enjoy this book, even if there were times I was not thrilled with character decisions, but I think that shows good writing. Overall: 4.5/5