One- I haven’t read the Divergent series, two- I haven’t seen the movies. So I had thought I didn’t have any expectations when starting Carve the Mark by Veronica Roth. But I guess since the other books were so good they made movies out of them and has a large following that I actually did have some higher expectations. It was a good story and I enjoyed the it, but it wasn’t a super go out and make a movie out of this right now type of book. That plus it seemed very, verrrrrry long and drawn out.
My favorite part is probably the diversity of the characters. My least favorite part was the redundancies. It seemed like I kept reading slight variations of the same thing over and over.
Carve the Mark is a dual POV sci-fi that is one half romance and one half lead up to a big war that doesn’t happen….. yet. Yup, that’s right, you got yourself a cliffhanger!!! Blech! But, to ease the Pain it only has one sequel as it is only a duology.
So now to the story itself…
Akos is a boy when he and his brother are forced from their home after witnessing the brutal murder of their father. Given that Akos is fated to die in the service to the Noevaks, the Shotet ruling family, it is not that big of a surprise that he had been kidnapped by Shotet soldiers.
Later as a young man he has certain talents that are useful to the Noevaks, especially Cyra, who is plagued by her own gifts with pain. But as he begins to understand Cyra and gain deeper feelings for her it gets increasingly complicated and difficult for him to separate himself and rescue his brother, who was fated as the rising Oracle of the Hessa nation.
Cyra’s gift is a more like curse. A tool, or weapon, for her brother to use to torture people who he deems needing punished or interrogated. Her gift, is pain. She can Inflict Pain just by touching, but it isn’t a one way street because it also causes her pain, constantly and if not controlled her pain can be deadly.
When Akos is ordered to be Cyra’s servant it is the first time she has felt free of pain since she was a child. It’s as if their gifts were made to compliment each other (imagine that). Hers tho inflict pain, his to stop it. As she becomes increasingly close to Akos, Cyra seems to change, though maybe this was who she was the whole time but just too afraid to show it.
In a world where fates are believed to be fact (and seemingly law) or even worshipped can these two defy fate? Or will they die trying?
It’s a good story and I will be reading the sequel, The Fates Divide, eventually.
I really was going for great a 5 star read here but, at least to me, it ended up a good 3. Veronica Roth did a splendid job at world building and telling the story but it did get a little redundant. And a whole star for the cliff hanger, because, cliff hangers=blech!
My little booklings, if you are into sci-fi, romance and planetary adventures then this book is worthy of a read.
