This is another book from my 'to read' pile! I'm slowly reading books from it....to only justify adding more. BOOK LIFE!
An amazon summary, "A darkly irresistible new fantasy set in the infamous Gomorrah Festival, a traveling carnival of debauchery that caters to the strangest of dreams and desires
Sixteen-year-old Sorina has spent most of her life within the smoldering borders of the Gomorrah Festival. Yet even among the many unusual members of the traveling circus-city, Sorina stands apart as the only illusion-worker born in hundreds of years. This rare talent allows her to create illusions that others can see, feel and touch, with personalities all their own. Her creations are her family, and together they make up the cast of the Festival’s Freak Show.
But no matter how lifelike they may seem, her illusions are still just that—illusions, and not truly real. Or so she always believed…until one of them is murdered.
Desperate to protect her family, Sorina must track down the culprit and determine how they killed a person who doesn’t actually exist. Her search for answers leads her to the self-proclaimed gossip-worker Luca. Their investigation sends them through a haze of political turmoil and forbidden romance, and into the most sinister corners of the Festival. But as the killer continues murdering Sorina’s illusions one by one, she must unravel the horrifying truth before all her loved ones disappear." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE
Sometimes people have an extra ability in this world and are commonly referred to as jynx or curse workers. A perfect place for people to hide from prejudices and make some money off of their abilities is at the traveling Gomorrah Festival. Sorina was adopted by the Proprietor (leader/owner) of the festival. Sorina has a very rare ability; she's an illusionist. She was also born without eyes but can still see. Her face as described as being smooth from the top of her forehead to her nose - there are no eye sockets or anything; just smooth skin. She can still see though, so to put whoever she meets at ease, she usually wears a mask over her eyes. Something else a little odd about Sorina, her illusions are their own separate people. She did create them, she has a small semblance of control over them (if she's near them, she can temporarily "put them away" MAGIC), but for the most part they are their own people. Each of her illusions is also very unique (a freak if you will) with their own curse worker abilities. They form a happy family, something Sorina craves, and they have their own tent and show within the Gomorrah festival. They are still illusions though, or well so Sorina thought until one of them is murdered.
Thattttttttttttttttt's enough summary.
The world building was interesting with the different types of curse workers at play in the story. It definitely became a, "I hope we solve this mystery" but not in the hokey way, but more like MY FAMILY IS DYING, PANIC way.
On top of that, there's an odd political climate going on. There are people referred to as the Up Mountainers and the Down Mountainers. Apparently, the Gomorrah Festival has been traveling between different Down Mountainers cities for years, and only recently have been allowed to travel to some Up Mountainers cities. I wish we knew more or had a more complete understanding of this political conflict. The Up Mountainers seem to be very religion driven and their religion says curse workers are devil workers or something along those lines, so the Up Mountainer people are very against the festival. The Down Mountainer people don't seem to care and just kind of, "*shrug* cool, magic!" as their general reaction. This does play into some further plot things later on, but no spoilers. There is a moment where they're like, "You know what? BARRAGE OF INFORMATION THAT SOMEHOW WAS NEVER RELEVANT BEFORE" and characters just spew facts about the history of the world/festival that doesn't ever seem relevant again, kind of. Like a poor excuse or explanation behind the motivations of some actions. Bleh.
Some of the characters were also in the LGBTQIA+ areas, which is always a bonus to me but I was also happy that it was more natural/authentically worked in rather than the constantly barraging you that they are somewhere in the LGBTQIA+ area.
Buttttttttttttt, I kind of got annoyed with Sorina after a while. She came off as a strong, willful, thoughtful character in the beginning who was mostly just afraid of being ostracized because she's a freak. She had lots of moments of self doubt, worry, and kind of struggling to do her best and discovering her best just isn't good enough. There was also this kind of weird, entitled attitude about her almost? Like, she never really hung out with people outside of her family without having a specific purpose to see them, but she would talk about them like they were a part of her family? I don't know, it didn't quite add up to me. A lot of the relationships with her family members also felt very authentic too, which was great to read. I also really, really really really wish we had gotten a better explanation or more of an explanation for Sorina's abilities. Specifically the strings aspect. There seemed to be a lot more there that just WASN'T explained because Magic? There hasn't been an illusion curse worker in a while? She's young? Take your pick of excuses.
I also would have liked to see MORE of the festival. We are given reasons of why Sorina knows what she knows about the festival, but there was a lot of things left unspoken. Plus, there doesn't seem to be a sequel to this book (after a few brief google searches). It just kind of irks me when authors introduce a TON of elements about a world, but never really bother to explain most of them. It's kind of like why bother having them in the first place?
....very meh of a read overall.
Happy reading!
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