Hi friends, happy Wednesday! I hope you’re all having a good week so far. Today I’m going to be posting my review of the first novel in the Carve the mark duology, Carve the Mark by: Veronica Roth.

Carve the Mark by: Veronica Roth: Cyra has the power of pain, a power her brother uses to torture his enemies, but she wants to prove that she’s more than her pain. Enter Akos, who Crya’s brother kidnaps to help with her pain, but has really been stolen for his brother Eijeh. Now, Crya and Akos find themselves working together but will they both survive or destroy one another trying. This was a fast-paced, yet disappointing novel. This started off all over the place which left the reader trying to figure out what this novel was about. The intro just left the reader confused, but after the first couple chapters it started to flow better. The set up felt clumsy and the world building was just lacking, which made it hard to keep track of the story. The plot was weird, and a little gruesome. The reader was ready to quit after this book, but then Roth dropped this bomb in one of the last chapters and after all this investment in this novel, the reader is curious to see where Roth could possibly take this story. The end was a complete cliff hanger as we don’t know how any of the plots are going to play out and that irritates the reader. The characters felt very stereotypical and just not very memorable. They grew throughout the novel, but they did so in very basic ways that bored the reader. Roth wrote Cyra’s points of view better than she did Akos; Akos POV’s felt all over the place, whereas Cyra’s at least brought clarity to the story. The reader expected more from this but in the end all they got was a cheesy plot that was a bit predictable and kinda boring with characters who felt like caricatures. This sounded promising but unfortunately it fell flat.