20 Feb 5 Star Review from Olivia’s Catastrophe
Review: I follow a booktuber called BenjaminOfTomes and was so impressed when I heard he was making a publishing company! He has since published plenty of books and I saw all of them whizz by. But there was something about New World Rising that prompted me to send an email to the publishing company and request a review copy of the book. I was so happy to be approved and now in the end I loved this book! It was well worth requesting and even if it wasn’t, we could just look at that beautiful cover all day because it really is gorgeous.
After turning the first page of this novel I was already sucked into the world. How could it happen so quickly? That’s because before we even get to the novel there are some beautiful drawings and sketches of the different kinds of tribe members and their identifying features. We also get a map of the city and if there is a map in a novel it’s already bonus points in my opinion.
It also makes sense for those sketches to be there – in this novel Phoenix uses a journal left by her deceased parents to help her survive in Tartarus which is definitely not an easy task with or without a journal. If you watch Supernatural like I do, you’ll know about the journal that the dad leaves Sam and Dean. It’s that kind of journal!
The world building was one of my favourite things about this novel. There’s a lot of detail that has gone into the world, and we can see that from the way Phoenix travels around Tartarus and what she does. I also liked how each of the tribes were so different. We get to encounter them all in different ways and to me it was just so interesting to see their dynamics and how they worked. It was definitely ruthless.
We can immediately feel sympathy for the main character because we get to read about her losing her parents and understand how it happens. There then is a little time jump to hwen she is of age and it is surprising to see how much she has developed and steeled herself. And yet when the time comes to either rescuing someone else who is a child or saving herself, she still has enough humanity in herself to try and save the child.
Wilson should also be applauded for her writing style. It was written beautifully. Although I felt like a few conversations were a little stiff, (they were few and far between) the rest of the writing flowed smoothly and just added so much to the story. The descriptions and imagery had me blown away and loving every minute I was sucked into this world…
All in all, someone needs to get book two to me ASAP! The cliffhanger ending had me pacing in frustration. I usually stay clear from reading the beginning of the next book that usually appears after the acknowledgements, but this time I couldn’t help myself! All it did was throw another twist to the mix that makes me want book two all the more. A must read from me!
Check out Olivia’s full review!