YA fantasy. Towards the “high fantasy” end of the genre. Set in Orisha, a nation based loosely on Nigeria. It is a kingdom in which magic had suddenly ceased to work and all adults who had been able to use it were killed by the king’s soldiers about a decade before the start of the story, while the children they left behind (many of whom are visually distinguishable by their white hair) are persecuted. The story follows two youth whose magically powerful mother was killed in the massacre, and two youth whose father is the king. Really liked the worldbuilding. The storytelling was generally entertaining, though a bit uneven. It’s a pretty standard thing in this kind of fantasy for characters to be on a quest to accomplish some task or reach some place or acquire some item, then they do and there is a transition that sets them off on some new quest. In this case, a couple of the transitions felt a bit abrupt and arbitrary, and there were a few moments where character motivation felt a little off to me. I think it didn’t help my reading experience that I’m just not as into high fantasy as I was 30 years ago. That said, I still enjoyed it.
Originally posted by Scott on Goodreads.