My Rating: 3/5 Stars

Title: The Gilded Ones (Deathless, #1)

Author: Namina Forna

Format: Hardcover (borrowed)

Pages: 432

Publication Date: 2/9/21

Publisher: Delacorte

Categories: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance

Sixteen-year-old Deka lives in fear and anticipation of the blood ceremony that will determine whether she will become a member of her village. Already different from everyone else because of her unnatural intuition, Deka prays for red blood so she can finally feel like she belongs.

But on the day of the ceremony, her blood runs gold, the color of impurity–and Deka knows she will face a consequence worse than death.

Then a mysterious woman comes to her with a choice: stay in the village and submit to her fate, or leave to fight for the emperor in an army of girls just like her. They are called alaki–near-immortals with rare gifts. And they are the only ones who can stop the empire’s greatest threat.

Knowing the dangers that lie ahead yet yearning for acceptance, Deka decides to leave the only life she’s ever known. But as she journeys to the capital to train for the biggest battle of her life, she will discover that the great walled city holds many surprises. Nothing and no one are quite what they seem to be–not even Deka herself.

First thing I love about this book is the cover. It’s vibrant and has a beautiful girl on the cover looking fierce. The synopsis sounded intriguing and for the beginning part of the book, I was hooked.

Deka is going through a rough time – her blood ceremony went haywire and it showed she wasn’t pure as she was hoping. She finds out she’s an alaki, basically a half-demon and she gets sent to the emperor to join his alaki soldiers to fight the Deathstrikers. Deathstrikers are demon creatures terrorizing the empire and Deka has a link to them, which makes her different.

I liked how the other alaki ~ all girls ~ decide to bond together instead of fight one another. They realize it’s not going to be pretty training as alaki but together, they can come out of this period successfully. So they become their own family and look out for one another. There was a lot of women power themes in this story.

There is a tiny bit of romance, nothing that takes away from Deka and her journey of finding out what she really is.

Triggers: death in many gruesome ways, violence towards women, torture, mention of rape

It’s gory. Deka is killed multiple times, in various ways but she’s a demon so – she doesn’t die yet, but her village elders definitely used her golden blood to profit from. Ugh. Many of the other alaki girls who didn’t arrive with Deka were violated and killed multiple times as well. So there is a lot of violence towards girls! On the other hand, the emperor’s elite fighting warriors/assassins are women, so the story showed both violence towards women and women committing violence. It showed the girls suffering because their survival shows how strong they are.

The story lost me at the halfway point when I felt like I wasn’t connecting to Deka at all. She tries to find out more about her mom, she keeps changing and as a reader, I could guess what she was changing into. I got a little bored and not even Ixa the shapeshifting animal could rouse my interest. Maybe I wanted Deka to be more angry? Like Belcalis? If my community tried to kill me nine times in every way possible, I’d be enraged and come back with a vengeance – but that’s me. Deka has more grace than I do! Haha! She’s a good person.

The message of The Gilded Ones is great – though we may suffer, whatever doesn’t kill us – makes us stronger. I enjoyed the world building because it is unique but I wish I connected more to Deka, I think I connected more to her friends. I think many readers will definitely love this book even if I didn’t, because it has a strong message and so much girl power infused in the story.

📚 ~ Yolanda