“If you don’t belong to a place, perhaps we belong to each other? We who belong nowhere?”
I hereby declare that, from man to wAttention, attention!
“If you don’t belong to a place, perhaps we belong to each other? We who belong nowhere?”
I hereby declare that, from man to woman and all in between, every soul who dreams in colours and unknown magic, who seeks adventures in rich lands alongside characters of flesh and blood, needs to immediately drop whatever the hell they’re holding and pick this book up. Why, you ask?
Because Realm Breaker is the book my wretched heart has wished to read ever since it found itself in between the fragile pages of dreams and fantasies and nestled in against the world.
No, not because of the hunger woven into its lines or the journey through forest and city and sea, all painted so tangibly they would dance before your eyes and in your ears and up your nostrils, in the gradually introduced medieval-inspired world of Allward that is diverse and bold and feels loved and lived in as a living thing (and which you need to let wash over you at first lest you become overwhelmed by its details and complexity hitting you in the face from the beginning, and instead relax because what you’ll need to remember and understand will be explained slowly later on); though the world sucks in a great deal of my adoration.
“Hammer and nail, the Companions are now seven, wind and gail, bound for hell or bound for heaven.”
And no, not for the mismatched, merry band of heroes who battle survivor’s guilt and the craving for home as they unwillingly try to save the world from being torn apart by the opening portals, their team growing both in number and begrudging closeness even as they wish one another dead; though I love this blooming found family (whose relationships are not focused on romance) and their challenges. Not even the jaw-dropping action scenes that are sometimes epic and sometimes hilarious but always immersive, or the smooth, artful storytelling that makes the book a tapestry—every moment a thread integral to the tale and leaving waves throughout, the suspense build-up ensuring you feel the tension either way—was what sealed its place in my bewildered heart.
No, the true reason why Realm Breaker ascended into my all-time faves shelf was its female characters—its powerful, strategic, rational, calculating, cunning, resourceful, unyielding women who carried the story in their filled pockets, who I could finally point to and say that’s it that’s who I relate to. And it saddens me how rare that is.
“Even when it isn’t the end of the world, the realm is a dangerous place for women,” Sorasa added, gesturing between herself and the bounty hunter. Sigil grinned broadly. “And so we became dangerous.” “Care to dance with us?” Sorasa extended a hand, gesturing like a partner at a ball. “We who belong nowhere?”
In interviews, Victoria has named Tolkien as an inspiration for why she wanted to write an adventure in a medieval fantasy world and, indeed, the Tolkienesque journey is very much there. But, to me, RB does better many things the legendary and worshipped LotR trilogy did inadequately, be it ethnicity and gender diversity, morally grey characters, or a world with trade and politics that make it feel lived in. When Aveyard writes about her inspiration in the Acknowledgements, she thanks Tolkien for “giving me so much—and yet so little. For making me want. For making me hungry,” and that’s precisely it.
“There are no greater teachers than fear and pain.”
I know fans of Tolkien are going to crucify me under this review (by all means) but, even as Tolkien will always be an idol of mine in the field of linguistics and I will continue to admire his deep knowledge of myths and how he combined them to create his detailed world at a time when fantasy was scoffed at, his works were too absolutist, racist, and sexist for me, a Middle-Eastern girl who supposedly has a “masculine” personality and whose favourite genre is grimdark. And please, don’t argue that he was not, because the defensive arguments are the issue—he was a child of his time and that’s understandable, may he rest in peace. I am not going to pick an argument with a dead man, I just think we need to see and admit the flaws in his works instead of brushing them aside, because that acknowledgement is the only way to improve.
So yes, that most renowned work of fantasy leaves me hungry as a blackhole, but the works inspired by it that strive to do it better fill me with hope.
So far to climb, but I cannot look up, or look back.
The truth we all know is that, for a long time, female characters were either nonexistent or included but in the worst ways possible. Then feminism kicked in and we were given a wave of female leads with no agency. Then voices were raised, and the current wave of diverse strong women rolled it—angry girls who made souls shake in fear and bold girls who did not let anyone put them or their bodies in a box; loving girls who stood strong and fought and quiet ones who slipped through the shadows with knives and deadly promises.
At every turn, I loved them. I cheered for them and adored them and wept in joy. But through it all, only a handful were ones I—the reportedly heartless control-freak who mostly only had the evil male masterminds to relate to—could see myself in. And then this book came and wrapped up all my favourite types of female characters in a box, fleshed them out, and tied it with a pretty ribbon for me to tear into.
What types of characters, you wonder? What is so special about these people made of words who you could simplify in tropes Aveyard explored and turned on their heads, you want to know? Then read on.
“There are breakers of castles, breakers of chains, breakers of kings and kingdoms,” she said, her voice iron. “Which am I?” Power surged through her veins, delicious and seductive. “You are a realm breaker. You would crack this world apart and build an empire from its ruins.”
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Characters: Powerful Women & Adorable Men
✦ Corayne: Firstly, I have no idea what reviewers mean when they say our chosen one was the weakest character—I’m sorry but did we read the same book? Victoria loves to take tropes and twist them around, both showing how they can’t work and how they can if made realistic. And with Corayne, she does just that.
Our girl is like all the other chosen teenagers, and yet the exact opposite. As any teenager taken on a sudden journey around the world to save it, she lacks experience and can’t survive without the adults accompanying her. But that does not make her clueless—far from it, in fact, because she is a sharp-minded planner who suffers no illusions and reads most people easily, knowing how to manage them, and is quick to rein in her emotions in favour of logically assessing the information to find solutions and even direct their group. She may be young and hopeful, but she is not naive, neither is she useless. How could she be, when she has been the mastermind behind the success of her captian (secretly pirate, but Corayne is not supposed to know that) mother’s ship from a young age. No, all this young no-nonsense lady is is out of her element, and she still does not lose herself, gathering herself quickly to react rationally.
An alliance bought is still an alliance made.
This is a type of character rarely written or understood, especially female and in YA, and especially as a realistic young hero and not an antihero or villain. With her darting eyes and furiously working mind, she always strives to anticipate the next step, planning and looking for answers. But when you insist that you see through all lies, sometimes you might also see through truths and disregard them. And when you have such aversion to unexpected experiences outside your plan, you can fear being incompetent and struggle. And if you are raised by a spontaneous, charming mother who is your opposite, you can also secretly crave to be as fearless and free as her.
Still, with all her insecurities, Corayne knows her strengths and what she wants. She has a wanderlust in her, looking for a place to belong and lay roots, and she goes after it as she does everything: methodically.
“The Lion should take you as its sigil. You’re twice as fierce, and twice as hungry.”
✦ Erida: Meet the young, morally-grey Queen of Galland, land of the Lion, and my favourite character—the character I thought I would never read.
While Erida has been queen for four years, she is still just a woman in the eyes of her patriarchal society. “Untrustworthy, unfit, too weak to rule. History gorges itself on women raised high and then brought low by men grasping for their power,” but she will not be one of them. She always is—and seeks to be—in control, and will tolerate no man’s self-righteousness or share her company, her mind, and the weight on her shoulders with anyone. It might make for a lonely existence, but she does not care. Because Erida and her strategic, cunning mind are preoccupied with more important matters, such as strengthening her hold on power before her court could cast her aside.
Only men can speak all day long and still think themselves silent.
✦ Sorasa: As one of the experienced adults among our MCs, this assassin of the Amhara, legend of the shadows, quick with tongue and blade, to whom discord is a better shield than steel, completely steals every scene she’s in. Not only is she a sarcastic, wild woman who takes up the role of reluctantly leading their team through danger after danger with her resourcefulness, her technique and deadly nature are captured with the most masterful quill to make her own the title assassin more than just in name. And slowly getting to know the values this amoral human holds is a welcome arc that filled me with warmth.
“Whatever you decide, possible death or certain death, be quick about it.”
✦ Other honourable mentions from the cast who took shelter in my heart include: Andry, the soft boy dreaming of knighthood who has always felt separate from his fellow royal squires and will not hesitate to fight for what and who he holds dear, even if he has to burn his road back. Dom, the honour-bound immortal who, like Andry, grapples with survivor’s guilt but does it more immaturely—because he might be 500 years old, but he has no idea how to deal with emotions and is generally an oddly naive cutie.
“Sorrow is a mortal endeavor. I have no use for it.”
And Meliz, the woman who rides the seas, enjoys every moment, and wants and wants and will not give up her wanting for anyone. Or Valtik, the eccentric, playful, fleeting witch and her rhymes and absurd priorities who surprised me with her courage. Sigil, the dangerous, meticulous bounty hunter with a dark humour, and her mortal enemy Charlon,, the shameless forger priest I could not resist. And ofc, our king of ashes raised in the mud—oh man do I want more of him.
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Relationships: Found Family & Villain Romance
Corayne inhaled deeply, taking one last gasp of her mother. “How fare the winds?” she whispered into her coat. Her mother breathed the smallest sigh. “Fine, for they carry me home.”
✦ Friendship & Family: My favourite aspect of any relationship is the layer of platonic support and mutual understanding. And, even as these cast of characters can barely stand one another, even as their hilarious banter and snapped retorts fill every chapter, even as the additions each bring interactions full of bitter history and tension into the mix, every new member slowly finds their place and rhythm by the end. This is only the start of something beautiful blooming, and I need more of it. Especially of Corayne and her mother, a mother she has never truly been a child to. And also the ones promising a future romance. *winky wink*
“[The bargain] will be upheld.” “Unless you die,” Sorasa said airily, pulling hard on the door. “Gods willing, if it means never seeing you again,” Dom muttered.
✦ Romance: Technically, there is no romance in this first installment. However, there is ~chemistry~ and in abundance. I’ll leave the alluded slow-burns for the next books but, I need to talk about the beautiful, beautiful villain romance.
“A marriage is a promise, and we promised each other the world entire.”
It’s not just the sexual tension, or the delicious wickedness, or the seduction of power. It’s not even the concept of two wolves sizing one another up so very delicately. It’s the fact that she scolds him and wants him as her weapon and he wants and respects her as his equal partner and they’re both formidable threats in their own right and xdkdhs, them combined? May the gods of Allward save our heroes.
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Writing: World & Atmosphere Building
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My words are too many and Goodreads’s word limit too little. I want to tell you about RB’s monsters and portals to other worlds that are myths to the current occupants of the Ward and how creative their workings are, and the magic they had once brought into this realm that is now a child’s fever dream. I want to rant about the politics and history of this diverse world, inspired by the Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, and the themes of conquest and colonisation next to the depiction of various cultures with their strengths and sayings and ways. I want, I want, I want.
What I will tell you is that, even though Aveyard references Tolkien as an inspiration and the parallels are certainly there, the world building reminded me more of GRRM—and I don’t say that lightly, as he is my favourite author. Victoria is someone who always takes care to flesh out every element in exquisite detail, be it war and its strategies, the ways of pirates, or the subtle art of being an assassin. And her changing, immersive landscapes that felt truly lived in with constant conflicts and trades, layered politics ever-present in the dynamics of the world, and tangible cities and kingdoms and clans which bore personalities from the get-go were more reminiscent of GRRM’s, feeling alive and complex the way his always do.
And that—this whole book—is everything I want from my fantasy.
When a book traps your soul from beginning to end and beyond, keeping hold of a string to your heart even as you leave it behind, you know it deservesWhen a book traps your soul from beginning to end and beyond, keeping hold of a string to your heart even as you leave it behind, you know it deserves all the constellations in the night sky.
What is a person, if not the marks they leave behind?
They say if you look through a wooden ring on the 29th night of July, just after dark, you’d see a wraith wandering valleys and alleys—singing, sighing, seeking. And if you lean in, shell of an ear pressed to the ring, you would hear the echoes of a madwoman, murmuring of a dance of three centuries, a game between the ruler of darkness and a ghost of a girl, a war that was a love affair and a need and an obsession.
They say that, if you follow closely, she’d take you through continents and centuries—chasing shadows, stalking the vanishing footsteps of an idea, a touch, a constellation of seven freckles. And if you stack up your courage in a fist and ask her what it is she seeks, she would tell you it is a god and a girl, a forgotten thing. And then she would turn to the night and cry out in challenge and raging prayer.
This, my friend, is where I suggest you let your fist fly open, scattering the gathered grains, and flee. For if you don’t, you would glimpse a man with raven hair and a fleeting emerald labyrinth for eyes set in the face of a wolf step from the shadows, a dark god bearing his own temples of need and desperation. For if you stay, the devil would take your soul.
They say, and they say it honest and true. I would know—I am the wraith, after all.
“No matter how desperate or dire, never pray to the gods that answer after dark.”
This quiet, languid, fleeting, wandering, aromantic romance that is more need and companionship than love; this tale of immortality with its heartwrenching wail and tragic tale of watching all you hold on to fall apart in your grasp; this book of a bewitching affair and search for freedom, love, and remembrance; this book with its ingenuous creativity, dwelling on the power of belief and ideas...stole my heart, bled it dry, and speared it atop the gates of hell to warn the unwary what would happen if you fell in love with the devil.
I persistently urge you to listen to the unbelievably flawless and fitting songs on my playlist of this book ➾ Spotify URL
“Nothing is all good or all bad,” she says. “Life is so much messier than that.” And there in the dark, he asks if it was really worth it. Were the instants of joy worth the stretches of sorrow? Were the moments of beauty worth the years of pain? And she turns her head, and looks at him, and says, “Always.”
In honour of Addie’s seven-star constellation of freckles, the feature that ensnared gazes and inspired artists and shone through centuries, I’m assigning each of the seven main stars of the Orion to the seven whys The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is a haunting, blinding, bold sky:
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★ Rigel: Storytelling
I would like to announce that I am the biggest idiot on earth for depriving myself of the writing of such a master storyteller. Such exceptional weaving techniques of piecing the tale together as a puzzle; such eloquent work, bringing the pages and words full circle; such perfect prose with sensible, tangible, and fitting metaphors.
Such talent. Much perfection.
What she needs are stories. Stories are a way to preserve one’s self. To be remembered. And to forget. Stories come in so many forms: in charcoal, and in song, in paintings, poems, films. And books. Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives—or to find strength in a very long one.
From sculpting characters that are more than a sculpture, real as any person with various outlooks on life that indeed leak into their way of speech, to scrutiny of details, wiping away any possible logical holes in the plot or magic, I am going to call V.E. Schwab my new all-time fave author even though this is my first book of hers. Let me just fold up my sleeves and get into the process of devouring the rest of her works.
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★ Bellatrix: Addie LaRue, the Muse
Scarier than having a dream, a desire, a need, and making a huge mistake because of it, haunted by your blindness for 3 centuries, is watching it happen and thinking that could be me.
It’s the relief of understanding towards an unrestrained, wild thing in search of her freedom, her life, her own path—be it companionship or loneliness; it’s the warmth of kinship towards a defiant dreamer dreaming of a stranger with dark hair, crying out against the night to belong to no one but herself, be bound to none but herself; and it’s the resignation to a road undoubtedly ahead of a girl fleeing the smallness of a static life, a tomb, strings cut, head wandering.
It’s joy and it’s pain and it’s unforgettable. Addie LaRue is unforgettable.
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★ Betelgeuse: Love & Luc, the Devil
Before I talk of Luc and love, I will—in true self-centred-me fashion—talk about me. So buckle up for personal information you absolutely did not ask for.
# confession time
I’ve always believed myself a loveless creature. I’ve believed it and declared it, to friend, family, stranger. Strangers raise an eyebrow, family nods in understanding of a shared problem, but friends...friends always disagree, always start a speech about how kind and caring and helpful and generous I am, well-intendedly attempting to explain myself to me as if I don’t live in my head.
What those friends do not understand is the meaning of love. Frankly, I was not sure of it either other than knowing I am not capable of it. That is, until Schwab wrote:
“You are not capable of love because you cannot understand what it is to care for someone else more than yourself.”
Love comes with honesty and compassion and trust and understanding, yes, but, above all else, love is putting someone else before yourself. And I admit I cannot truly love because I know that, no matter how giving and caring and helpful I am, I will always choose me if choosing others hurts me, and the fact that I do not care for most things so I wouldn’t be hurt by them (like money) does not take away from my being an essentially selfish creature. I confess this without any sugar coating because I believe it’s crucial to know your most prominent flaws and be honest with yourself and those around you, to refrain from harming others through them.
That’s love. So what about Luc?
“Pain can be beautiful,” he says, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “It can transform. It can create.”
My uncalled for rant above makes it glaringly—blindingly, really, because if you didn’t get it then seriously whatareyoudoin—obvious I relate to this god of the dark between the stars; this selfish and lonely creature with secret longings and hidden loss; this cruel, moody immortal seeing the world as a game but also capable of being wounded and confused; this “vast and savage night, the darkness, full of promise, and violence, fear, and freedom” with a lack of respect for boundaries.
“Do not mistake this—any of it—for kindness, Adeline.” His eyes go bright with mischief. “I simply want to be the one who breaks you.”
But beyond being relatable, he is possessive, obsessive, abusive, and other unattractive -ives. And this plus Addie’s unwillingness to ever back down is what makes their bloodsport of a dynamic so utterly irresistible—one that, despite its toxicity (that is never overlooked or romanticised), has its perks (how he pushes her, challenges her, to be better, if ruthlessly) and hilarious moments (how he ruins her dates, even as he’s a god for god’s sake).
But remember that, no matter how these two cutthroats fit, no matter how their passionate, warlike back-and-forths are something they both crave, she only really had him in the vast emptiness of her world, and he made it so. Her thoughts are filled with him, because he made it so.
Remember that, however alluring their affair, it is not love.
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★ Alnilam: Henry, the Storykeeper
You know that feeling when you get gifted a box of sweets and you think well okay this will probably be cloyingly sweet and ah, well, I will end up tired of it and then you have a taste and oh will you never forget the moment it sizzled on your tongue and you realised no no it is not more of the same and it’s simply unique?
That’s Henry for me.
Because sensitive, caring, soft, quiet, strong characters haunted by failure more often than not fail to hold my flickering attention, yet I now trust Victoria Schwab to do the unlikely. Because he is more than those adjectives strung up together; he is lost and hungry in a world that holds an insurmountable number of tastes, insatiably craving too many of them to choose; he is a boy who sees stories in theology, who fears being himself as much as he hates not being seen as himself; and he is more than simply sensitive, carrying a cracked heart that lets in everything and anything, and Schwab’s exploration of his mental health and anxiety was soulful and unforgettable.
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★ Alnitak: Feminism
Sometimes I wonder if, through the millennia that humans have roamed the earth, there has ever been a girl who has not looked away, looked up, from what life had handed her, seen the lot of boy next to her and wanted more. I wonder if, even among the content and kind and incurious of generations ago where being a dreamer was not yet a seed planted, not a one of them dreamt of freedom and ownership of one’s own life.
And mostly, I wonder if the women who called after questioning girls as one would a sheep gone astray, are in reality the ones who’d seen the most injustice, dreamt the hardest, and learned such a hard lesson to end up helping in the keeping of the leash.
Freedom is a pair of trousers and a buttoned coat. A man’s tunic and a tricorne hat. If only she had known. The darkness claimed he’d given her freedom, but really, there is no such thing for a woman, not in a world where they are bound up inside their clothes, and sealed inside their homes, a world where only men are given leave to roam.
I might never know, but I will always seek tales of dreamers who would look at men and see at what little cost they moved through life, who would look into the woods and ask to be a tree, grown wild rather than pruned and cut down to burn in someone else’s hearth, be someone else’s chair.
Addie LaRue’s is one such tale.
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★ Mintaka: History & Art
For a book that spans across hundreds of years and yards, it goes without saying that there will be history and humanity with all its wonders and cruelty and war and art. And yet, as Addie would put it, “history is a thing designed in retrospect” and Addie LaRue is less a lesson on history than a parable of a great many presents.
“Art is about ideas. And ideas are wilder than memories. They’re like weeds, always finding their way up.”
So while there is history with clever commentary on evolution of fashion and glimpses of war and death and revolution, that is not what it is about. Schwab’s new novel is about history taking shape. About stories and ideas taking root in unseen places and climbing up through the darkest places of mind that have never seen the sunlight. Not about the world-changing historical figures and world-ending historical events written as a hammer falling, but as a friend and a brief conversation and a flash of life. This is not about the affect of the grand but the power of the minor.
It’s about life and art and humans and how, even after one hundred years or three hundred years, there is yet more to find. Unknowns to see. Novelties to discover. And it is all the more memorable because of it.
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★ Saiph: Loneliness & Remembrance
Have you ever watched that glorious, solitary tree of decades and centuries and memories struck down by a lightning storm? Ever held that tiny, inconsequential keepsake of a forgotten soul, refusing to ease your desperate grasp? Have you spent hours and days and a lifetime breathing your heart and soul and life into that lifeless thing, shaping it with your will and need and then, just a blink too soon, a moment before perfection, resolution, completion, seen it fall apart?
Tell me, have you ever felt that abyss of sadness reserved for the lost? The forgotten? The lonely?
“Why would anyone trade a lifetime of talent for a few years of glory?” “Because happiness is brief, and history is lasting, and in the end,” he says, “everyone wants to be remembered.”
I am a creature doomed to loneliness, seeking its banishment and knowing it is here to stay, and this book is the song of my soul. Because this, this is the why behind the exquisite pain of this book: a loss so stark, so sharp it cut straight through me and I poured, I poured until I drowned and I poured until all was washed away and there, right there—beneath the pain and the dirt and the injustice—there lay the gem of names and marks fading into darkness; of identity and reality with its bittersweet embrace; of dreams and time slipping through your clutching hands; of me, and you, and humanity’s unending need to be remembered and chased and never replaced.
“The vexing thing about time,” he says, “is that it’s never enough. Perhaps a decade too short, perhaps a moment. But a life always ends too soon.”
Millions of thankful stars and constellations to my superhero for sending me an eARC from Edelweiss!
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