Seven Faceless Saints

Most probably a 3.5 but I'm rounding up.

Ofcourse I'm vain and get enamored with gorgeous things, so when I first saw this stunning cover, I knew I had to read it. I was quite excited when I got the opportunity to participate in this blog tour. And it turned out to be quite a complicated read.

Firstly, I have been having a tough time reading for months now, so I had to take it slow with reading this one and maybe my health issues have affected the joy I otherwise might have felt while reading this book. But I still hope I'm able to do justice to it. This book had some great plot, interwoven with the world, horrific murder mystery elements seamlessly written into this fantasy. I can't say it totally surprised me but I do enjoy some predictability sometimes, so this was a cool read.

The world building is a bit complicated though and it took me a while to get into the groove and understand what was going on. I still don't think I remember all the saints and their respective powers, or who signifies what in their disciples minds - but it was an interesting secondary world religion, exploring ideas like the perils of extremism especially towards the end, which felt very relevant to our current world scenario and the issues we seem to be facing everyday with religious extremism.

But ultimately it's what the author tells through the characters is I feel the beating heart of the story. Roz is powerful and angry at the world and hates what power has done to the society, how oppression is ingrained and no one questions that faith. Damian on the other hand is a soft boy with immense faith in his saints and believes in his duty as a guard(or cop) but is disillusioned by his experiences in war, and has to grapple with the actual ground reality of his faith and duty. Their past relationship in the story leads to a lot of yearning but I still think I appreciated them more as individuals than feeling invested in their relationship. I also think they both sometimes felt like archetypes present to further explore the themes in this story than individuals with more personal motivations.

However, in the end, this was a fun YA fantasy with a bit of a rough start but a pretty cool ending. Roz's unbending anger, Damian's internal struggles and the world full of forgotten saints whose disciples don't necessarily engage in any saintly endeavors - this is an enjoyable book you can try, especially if you are looking for a YA fantasy which you can read quickly. And it'll look gorgeous on your bookshelf too.

Mixed feelings with this one...

Ok so first: REALLY like the worldbuilding here. The whole religion being built around the Saints and also having it connected to the magic system; I thought that was really cool. I wish the book had delved into the religion a bit more than the murder mystery, but technically they were pretty intertwined.

Especially Damian's story with him being faithful and struggling with his faith as more and more things start going wrong. I always think that's a fascinating thing to explore. 

Something about this book just did not hit for me, I'm afraid.

There were a few plot holes that were just annoying enough to tank my enjoyment of things, plus the main characters (mostly Damian) made some stupid decisions that just ticked me off. This book was just missing things that would've made me rate it higher.

Spoilers for the whodunit: I feel like we SEVERELY did not get enough build-up for Enzo to be the murderer and a Disciple of Chaos. He only had like, what, 3 appearances total?? And absolutely none of them showed him doing anything remotely suspicious. I think the author was so determined to make the big bad be such a shock and a plot twist that they forgot you actually need to plant seeds for these sorts of big reveals for them to actually work. I was just kinda confused during the entire scene where he revealed himself, especially when he immediately started flirting with Roz and calling her pet names? Like obviously he was trying to seduce her to his side, but it made no sense because they didn't know each other nearly well enough for it to be a viable tactic. Like sure, if Enzo and Roz had had multiple meetings and spent time together actually getting to know each other, maybe with him flirting with her and introducing the thought of a possible love triangle, this choice would be more compelling. Even if there was no flirting and they just ran into each other more often (like say, if Enzo joined the rebellion and started going to meetings) then this would all be more feasible. But it just came completely out of nowhere and it was 100% creepy and 0% enticing.

Overall I didn't hate this book and I don't think it's a bad book, but it just didn't give what I wanted it to give. I likely won't be picking up the sequel.