Carve the Mark by Veronica Roth – Review

Published: January 17, 2017

Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books

Genre: Young Adult, SciFi

Series: Carve the Mark #1

Pages: 468 (Hardcover)

My Rating: 3.0/5.0

Synopsis:

In a galaxy powered by the current, everyone has a gift.

Cyra is the sister of the brutal tyrant who rules the Shotet people. Cyra’s currentgift gives her pain and power — something her brother exploits, using her to torture his enemies. But Cyra is much more than just a blade in her brother’s hand: she is resilient, quick on her feet, and smarter than he knows.

Akos is the son of a farmer and an oracle from the frozen nation-planet of Thuvhe. Protected by his unusual currentgift, Akos is generous in spirit, and his loyalty to his family is limitless. Once Akos and his brother are captured by enemy Shotet soldiers, Akos is desperate to get this brother out alive — no matter what the cost.

Then Akos is thrust into Cyra’s world, and the enmity between their countries and families seems insurmountable. Will they help each other to survive, or will they destroy one another?

Carve the Mark is Veronica Roth’s stunning portrayal of the power of friendship — and love — in a galaxy filled with unexpected gifts.

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Veronica Roth wrote the hugely popular Divergent trilogy, so when it was announced she would be writing a new sci-fi series her fans were pretty much in an uproar from what I understand. I read Divergent and wasn’t really a fan (your run-of-the-mill dystopian YA), but the plot for Carve the Mark sounded interesting and that cover was *on point*. Very cool leaky slices on the cover, plus the hardcover edition has some awesome embossing under the dust jacket. Let’s get real though – the real reason I picked this up was because people on Goodreads said it needed trigger warnings. I HAD TO KNOW WHY THEY WOULD CRY ABOUT SUCH A THING.

Carve the Mark turned out to be fairly dark and violent for YA, but that thing is kind of trendy right now so it wasn’t really all that surprising. No triggers were elicited by this book, but then again I do read a lot of books that fall into the grimdark subcategory so this was tame in comparison. There was a bit of torture, kidnapping, public arena bouts, and even a dash of flaying (that was a surprise). There were also some really cheesy lines that made me roll my eyes and sigh, but that happens at least a couple times in almost every book I read.

Overall, I enjoyed it but found the pacing to be quite slow for most of the book. This isn’t entirely a bad thing because the characters are allowed to grow organically (no synthetic info dumps here) and there’s still plenty of character conflict and emotional discourse. Carve the Mark didn’t leave enough of an impression to make me certain that I would read any sequels that may follow. If reviews are compelling enough I may consider continuing the series, but life’s too short for mediocre books!