Unlike anything I’ve ever read. A story set in a lush, gorgeous world of magic and mermaid tails and Gods. There’s betrayal, vengeance, and at the heart of it, a man who–in a sense–will become a God.
Almost every single character jumps off the page, I say almost because it extends to the side characters which are usually devoid of any real personality in many other stories.
Xiala, a Teek, a woman whose body is said to hold magic in its bones and who loves drinks and pretty people to spend the night with. A captain who ends up hired to get Serapio to his destination in twenty days during the winter season when all other boats are dry docked to avoid ship killer storms. She can only convince her crew that her Teek magic will get them there safe. It doesn’t go so well.
Serapio, a man meant to become a god since the day of his birth. Everyone who sees him fears him due to his blinded eyes and the ornate scars on his body that tell the tale of the destruction of his clan.
Naranpa, a Sun Priest who wants to remind the people that The watchers are there for them. What happened to her truly made me sad. She couldn’t trust anyone, even the person she’d once cared for. From the outset she loses quite a bit and I was hoping she wouldn’t the entire time.
The relationship between Xiala and Serapio is interesting. Both magical in their own rights, both feared. They are very similar and vastly different. She grows the care for him and he for her in a sort of quasi-relationship that can never truly be. He’s a being of vengeance and she was hired just to move him like cargo. Be that as it may, for the most part Serapio is very human up until the end.
I have truly never read a story like this with magic I’d never experienced. I couldn’t put this book down. With everything going on in the world, I needed an escape and this book provided it. The ending was a little ambiguous and I’m hoping maybe we’ll get a sequel but that’s just the fan in me. It was a fantastic read and even with the ambiguous ending, I still give it five stars.
Rebecca Roanhorse built a world that I didn’t want to leave with characters who pulled me in and a story I’ll be thinking about for days at lest.
theworldsbetweenpages 