Posted by I was super excited about this one. I love books that feature a non-human main character. It can be such a breath of fresh air and an interesting insight into the author’s take on what makes us human, and what would set a culture apart, and where we could be similar. It’s such a big ask to create an entirely different people and culture that’s outside of our own perspective, but if it’s done well it’s so satisfying. I don’t even think humans are a part of this world at all, making it more complicated to write. Our main character, Zyanteal, is from a species known as the kamori, which I took to be small, almost elf-like creatures. I honestly have a very, very difficult time visualizing things that are novel/new and I haven’t seen before in some kind of visual media. There are a race of hobgoblins that take up a lot of page time and I was able to see those in my head fairly well, but very often I just had a vague idea of what these races looked like and I think that’s more on me than the author.
The pacing, for me, was fast from the start and it doesn’t let up. It’s not a long book either, before I knew it, it was over. From the beginning chapter Zyanteal is thrown into the thick of it. Her village was ransacked, most of the people she knew were killed or captured, and she was “enslaved” but also a “daughter” of the Vulkari.
The Vulkari (I’m TTSing so I’m not sure about the spellings for these things) are a race of dog-people that walk on two legs (I think) and where the women are bigger, more aggressive, and the raiders of their clans. Zyanteal was indoctrinated into their culture, and it’s a rough bloody culture. I imagined these people to be kind of like hyena-people, or wolf-people based on my limited head-movie. I leant more towards hyena since both of them are led by the bigger, more aggressive females of the pack.
We have so many coming of age stories in this year’s SPFBO. I think this is the least YA oriented one of them all, though. I don’t think I would have connected much with this as a kid, but for kids into the darker stuff they might be more into this. This is a very different kind of entry, I don’t often see a book where there aren’t people, with such a young character, and being told in this sort of way. It’s a very intimate kind of book since we’re told the story in the first person and just a single POV. This gives the reader a long time inside her head which let’s the reader get to know her very well as she ages throughout the story. I was never sure I liked her, but she did have a fascinating journey. I’m also not sure you’re supposed to “like” her, either. She’s not written to be “likeable” in the classic kind of way. I’m sure she’s a character some people love, but she’s not the stereotypical plucky YA character who everyone automatically roots for, ya know? That really made this one stand apart from the other coming of age stories we have this year. She’s fiery from the start, too. I would have thought someone growing up in a backwater village would have a harder time adjusting to this kind of life, and to be clear, she didn’t enjoy it at first. When she was first taken she thought about escape, was horrified at times by how brutal they were, but that eventually goes away and she becomes “one of them” referring to the others of her pack as “sisters” and watches as they brutalize towns. You get to go on the journey with her as she leaves her quiet villager mentality behind and begins to value strength, brutality, and survival of the fittest. This book can get fairly dark and violent, so just bear that in mind if you’re thinking about picking it up.
I wouldn’t call this a no stakes or low stakes book, but it was an intimate one with more focus on the character than the world at large. There was a small amount of politics that kind of let me know how the world was run and by who and what the relationships were between the races, but this is a very focused story on Zyanteal’s journey.
I had a super hard time coming up with a rating for this one because I’m not really sure if I enjoyed this book or not, but I can’t knock it too hard on any particular thing. It’s just not a book that I tend to want to read. I actually just got done watching Bookborns first reviews for SPFBO and I agree that many of these books are niche, and that they may not necessarily agree with everyone… but if you DO fall into that niche audience you could love these books.
I’m giving this a 7.5/10 for SPFBO