"don't you dare tell me what death is," she said. "I know."
* * *
3/5
Carve the Mark tells the story of Akos from the Thuvhe people, captured by the
people of Shotet and given to Cyra, a woman whose "currentgift"
brings her only pain and whose brother, Ryzek, is a murderous tyrant. On the
whole I enjoyed the lyrical prose and the characters. It is certainly a
character-driven novel which suffers heavily from a lack of thorough world-building and
reliance on unpleasant racial/religious stereotypes.
I was also massively attracted by the beautiful hardcover.
The Good
The characters. I expected Cyra to be like Lada from And I Darken -
vicious, brutal and takes joy in killing. Instead I found Cyra to be less
inherently violent than sorrowful and angry. Angry at her brother, at society,
but mostly with herself. She makes certain foolish decisions, but they were not
(with one exception) decisions which frustrated me. They were believable. Akos
is gentle but tough, and is certainly a survivor. He is driven by loyalty to
his family, most particularly his love for his brother.
The cast also benefited from a number of well rounded female characters - I
often find that an author writes one main female character (looking at you
Rogue One) and then thinks that that is enough, populating the rest of the
supporting cast with men. I particularly liked Sifa, Akos' mother.
The writing. Roth's style makes it seem like the novel is going slowly even
when lots is actually happening. This may not be a good aspect for some people,
but I found myself enjoying the beautiful, fluid style. The novel is written in
first and third person, first for Cyra and third for Akos, which really helps
to give their respective chapters a different feel - hopefully something Ross
learnt from Allegiant. I've read far too many alternate first person where I
had to keep flicking to the start of the chapter to remember who I was reading.
The novel is also nicely quotable if you like that kind of thing:
"so, throw honor out the window." "honor," I said with a snort. "honor has no place in survival"
She also gives Cyra a reasonable amount of snark without it being ridiculous
and cringe-worthy (looking at you Rick Riordan and Throne of Glass).
"are you insane?" he said, his voice husky from sleep. "come
now, you must have heard the rumours!" I said cheerfully
The Not-So-Good
The world building. There's about nine planets in Roth's universe/solar-system
- we see two of them, know hardly anything about any of the rest, and they're
all supposedly governed by The Assembly which I also know nothing about. Roth
either mentions things and never explains them properly (Armoured Ones, The
Assembly, etc.) or simply doesn't give enough information for the world to feel
fully fleshed out. There's a throw away one line where she mentions that Thuvhe
has floating cities! Tell me more! But alas...
The unpleasant racist stereotypes. Without these my rating would be much
higher, because there was much of this book that I genuinely loved. I have
heard many reviewers (some of whom don't appear to have actually read the
book?) saying that there is a savage brown-skinned race (Shotet) set against
the nice peaceful whites (Thuvet) - obviously a problem. Having paid careful to
character descriptions, it seems like both people are actually composed of
varying racial groups:
Cyra has "medium brown" skin, dark eyes and curly hair like her
mother. Her father and brother are white, with "fair skin" and Ryzek
(the evil dictator) being described as "pale" at least three times.
Various other Shotet people have fairly white descriptions - Teka has platinum
blonde hair and pale grey eyes.
Akos is white, whilst his siblings are fairly undescribed other than to say
they have "dense, curly hair". Personal spoilery theory under the
spoiler (view spoiler) All this leads me to the conclusion that both
groups are racially diverse. Whilst it isn't as bad as some kind of clear cut
bad brown people against the peaceful pure whities, Roth is guilty of other
things.
The Shotet people are clearly portrayed as "evil" (culture based
around violence, they record kill marks on their arms - think society like An
Ember in the Ashes but not actually quite so violent), whilst we actually
understand/see very little of Thuvet culture. The Shotet also quite clearly
have several parallels with Islam (something writers do A LOT when they want to
make a group seem so obviously evil (sarcasm)) with forbiddance of certain
substances, a pilgrimage aspect to their religion, etc. Their language is
described as unappealing next to harmonic Thuvet. Whether doing so on purpose
or not, the Shotet are clearly imbued with unpleasant racial and religious
stereotypes in an attempt to make them seem uncivilised. Roth could have
benefited heavily from some sensitivity readers. Or some critical thought about her own work.
Conclusion
I did like Carve the Mark. I enjoyed the plot, the characters, and the writing.
I found Cyra in particular compelling, and I admire her strong, genuine
character. I would highly recommend that Ms Roth, in future, employs some kind
of sensitivity reader because I don't think she has quite conveyed the message
that she wanted to.
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