Carve the Mark ~ Veronica Roth (Carver the Mark #1)

★★★★☆

There was a hunger inside me, and there always had been. That hunger was stronger than pain, stronger than horror. It gnawed even after everything else inside me had given up. It was not hope; it did not soar; it slithered, clawed, and dragged, and it would not let me stop.

And when I finally named it, I found it was something very simple: the desire to live.

This book is just Divergent with a face lift and some eyeshadow; it's just Divergent with better worldbuilding and better characters, and set in space this time. New and improved. Divergent 2.0

This is told in two perspectives, which only started working about halfway through the book, once Cyra actually started doing things. The first perspective, Akos', is told in third person, and was very well done. Honestly, if someone told me that Cyra's first person was written by a different author, I would believe them. Akos immediately hooked me, and Cyra immediately bored me. I cannot fathom why Roth felt the need to write in two different styles. I thought, perhaps, that the reason was Cyra's isolated and sensation-themed nature, and that the first person was to better show her introspection as a result of her life, but instead it was so unbelievably dull most of the time. She doesn't describe her pain, just says where on her body the currentshadows are now, which tells me absolutely nothing. Akos, however, was sufficiently introspective even in third person. It's utterly baffling.

Also, the first third (after Akos' initial scenes) were SO BORING and they're supposed to be the basis of the romance between the two leads (hint: they failed).

The world was awesome though! I really enjoyed it, and the worldbuilding was done super well. I'm a big fan of space opera, science fantasy stuff. Please explore more planets in the sequel! I also really liked the themes for the most part, and found that many of tropes taken straight out of Divergent fit better here, adding more meaning to the story instead of making it convoluted.