Melinda Salisbury
Performed by Amy Shiels
Scholastic, 2015
Genre: YA, Fantasy
Source: borrowed through SYNC--thank you!
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Twylla spends her days locked in a tower, surrounded by guards. No one will touch her, not even her guards, because every moon she must drink a poison to prove to everyone that she has been chosen by the gods. As such, it is her job to execute traitors to the throne by touching them and thus poisoning them. Twylla is lonely. Even the prince, who is immune to her touch and her betrothed, has not spent much time with her, or even there at the castle. When a new guard comes to watch over her, Twylla begins to learn more about the world outside of her country, and thus more about the world within the palace. At the same time, the prince is finally beginning to take notice of her, leaving Twylla with a choice: her country or her heart.
There was a lot going on here. Twylla loves her guard who just doesn't seem to get that he has to play by some rules or he'll make things really messy for both himself and Twylla. She's betrothed to the prince. Although he is a spoiled young prince who speaks down to those around him, doesn't seem too terrible--next to his mother at least. The queen is a horrible and awful woman and that is obvious within the first chapter or so. She is evil. Twylla tries to stay out of her way, but it's impossible because the queen seems to seek her out in order to make her miserable. One day she will take her place.
Oh yeah, and then there is all this information about the sin eater, Twylla's mother, who is paid to eat at a person's burial in order to ingest all of the deceased's sins. We learn through many of Twylla's musings and flashbacks that certain foods are representative of certain sins and that there is an order to the eating. If Twylla had not been discovered as the chosen one of the gods, she would be training to be the next sin eater. The whole sin eater part didn't really have an importance to the story, except it helped to show the belief system of their people.
I wasn't really that thrilled and kept waiting for this book to be over. Both love interests were annoying, neither one really representing the true choice she should have gone with. Twylla herself was somewhat annoying as well. I was waiting for her to DO something. Make a choice. Say something. Fight back. Anything, but she felt very passive in all instances. At one point I expected her to break out of her tower, but instead someone always comes for her and lets her out. The only time she leaves on her own, she wanders back to the prince.
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