Monday 17 February 2014

(Review) Dissever - Tracey Ward

Title: Dissever
Author: Tracey Ward
Format: ebook
Pages: 276 pages
Genre: Young Adult (Fantasy, Romance)
Date of Publication: February 8, 2014


Summary (from Goodreads)
I have ever and always been perfectly and soundly in love with Ro.

Annabel Lee is growing up in the court of a hidden kingdom, one shrouded from the wars that ravish the outside world. Her father is cruel, her mother is kind and her heart now and always belongs to her greatest friend, Roarke. But he's an Outsider, an unwanted on the island, his people's existence the product of a horrible night over a hundred years ago. A night when an age old treaty was broken. When the sky rained fire and the sea raged deadly.

When tragedy strikes and a horrible accident leaves her friend broken and scarred, Anna begins to wonder if the "safety" of this hidden island is worth the price they pay. A price she herself is now expected to pay in full.

Can she save herself and an island that doesn't want saving? To even try, she'll have to fight fate, defy the gods and seek the help of an Outsider. Of the love she cannot have. The one she will not live without.

Review: 

I received this book from the author for free in exchange for an honest review. Thank you so much!

Dissever is a story derived from a famous poem by Edgar Allan Poe called Annabel Lee. There's countless YA being based around actual myths and other fairy tales so it was a little refreshing to read something so detailed that's based from a poem. Anna, was to be an unwilling victim to a sacrifice that would either make or break her land. Anna's father sees her as nothing more than a commodity, a piece he intends to play with as much as he wants if it could get him anything. It's because of this sort of treatment from her very own father that Anna has grown to be a feisty woman who learned to stand on her own two feet. She quickly learns how to play the game that her father is forcing her to play in. 

Her story really begins upon her meeting with an Outsider, a boy named Roarke who she would fall in love with even if it meant going against everything she believed she must do. Despite their differences I loved how well-rounded the cast of characters were, and the way they have matured as the story progressed shows a lot of skill in a writer - to be able to show a human side in a highly fantasy setting.

Despite being based on a poem, Dissever has it's own set of culture and religion that is richly documented in the story, an aspect of it that I love. Towards the end, we see how the pieces of information that are given interact with each other and once again it left me in awe at how one can accomplish such depth in just a couple of pages. 

I loved the rather intimate wedding ceremony with Roarke and Anna. It was a symbol of Anna's independence from her duties as a sacrifice, something she did entirely for herself and the fact that it was so intimate really brought it closer to my heart. The other characters played equal parts of the story for me, no one really was above the other, perhaps with the exception of Anna's father who I will forever see as the epitome of greed and selfishness, 

All in all, this book was particularly moving I couldn't help but read at a much slower pace than I normally would. This book, its richly-coloured culture, religion, ideologies all expertly intertwined in the story, is more than just Roarke and Anna's love story. To me, it almost represented something very real in the world, which is the occasional human incapacity for tolerance and understanding when a complex situation is right in front of us. Everything that I read in the book demanded to be felt and I loved every second of it. It is a good book to dip your fit into an non-conventional magical romance, and it certainly made me look forward to reading more of Tracey Wards works. 

Rating: ♚♚♚♚♚

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