The Blurb
Saran and Keiler are elemental mages bound by love and sorcery: one destined to rule a kingdom, the other to destroy it. Five years ago, Saran reached into Keleir Ahriman’s heart and imprisoned the demon within him, tying her soul to his. Together, they’ve conspired against Saran’s father—a fanatical king who worships that world-ending demon inside Keleir, a being known as the Vel d’Ekaru. When Saran risks everything to save a village of innocent people, the king rips her magic away, splintering the wall she built around Keleir’s heart. Powerless and desperate, Saran struggles to see her rebellion finished and stop Keleir from becoming the Vel d’Ekaru – the Living God.
In a world that is equal parts magic and political intrigue, heroine and hero must now battle their way back to each other if they are to overcome their doomed destinies.
Review
Read: April 2019
Rating: 1 star out of 5
*Thank you to NetGalley for the free digital ARC!*
I probably should have known this book would be awful just by the first sentence of the blurb. Instead, I tried to be optimistic. Sometimes, hoping for the best pays off, but this time I was just disappointed. The Living God is just another book to add to my “Did Not Finish” shelf on Goodreads.
Chief amongst this book’s problems are its sucky characters. Saran is a gorgeous Time Mage who is engaged in a supposedly consequential rebellion against her father, the despotic yet sickly King Yarin D’Mor of Adrid. While Saran is strong-willed, just being involved in a rebellion against her dad isn’t enough to convince me she’s a badass. Her lover, Keleir Ahriman, is a Fire Mage who is esteemed by King Yarin. Since birth, Keleir hosted a demon called the Oruke, which is apparently also called the Vel d’Ekaru. Prior to the demon’s containtment – courtesy of the lovely Saran – Keleir committed terrible things with the demon. As a result, he bears the heavy yoke of guilt, and that makes him broody to an obnoxious extent. Between the fire affinity, the tenebrific disposition, and the stupid overprotective shit he does, he’s basically the bastard child of Edward Cullen and a garbage version of Prince Zuko. Rowe Blackwell is Keleir’s less interesting brother who somehow escaped the curse of the Oruke, despite the fact that Keleir was born with the curse. How this happened is unclear to me – either because the author never explains it or because I gave up before she did. And finally there’s Odan Marki. A commander or some shit in the Adridian army, he serves as the sexual predator antagonist who makes completely inappropriate advances on Saran, such as skulking around on her balcony to peep at her through the windows or attempting to extort her into sex. In contrast to Saran’s Fire Mage lover, Marki is an Ice Mage. Because that’s not at all cliché.
The beginning of the book is decent: It opens with an action-packed scene playing out in reverse as Time Mage Saran – who also happens to be the princess of Adrid – uses her powers to save a village of innocent people from slaughter at the hands of her father’s army. But an adequate start does little for a book if it’s the high point. By page forty-five, I thought of sloughing through all three hundred sixty-eight ass-damned pages with the consternation I usually reserve for large homework projects. The excitement of the opening scene fizzles out by Chapter Two, and it doesn’t return. Despite the rebellion’s status as a purportedly high-stakes conspiracy, nothing interesting really happens with it. In the portion I read, the most intriguing thing that happens involving it is Odan Marki discovering a rebellion-related letter in Saran’s room and then using it in an attempt to coerce Saran into fucking him. Yuck. I find it problematic that the attempted sexual assault is one of the more riveting (albeit one of the most horrific) points of the book. That’s just a low bar to set on so many levels. And all the fascinating potential of time/dimensional travel is wasted when Platt spends an entire fucking chapter on Saran and Keleir just… riding carnival rides. Yeah.
Platt’s writing is long-winded, but not in the charming way that J.R.R. Tolkien’s is. While Tolkien actually establishes his characters and universe in his monologues, Platt does not. Instead all I get out of her ramblings are tidbits about what color the curtains are. The details you do get are the details you do not care about or want to know at all. Consider, for instance, this sentence: “The full dining hall had long tables with men and women seated at them, eating the morning meal.” This detail is not presented in a manner that fleshes out the scene of a story; it’s just thrown in and sits awkwardly in the paragraph. If there is anything I want to know about the story, it’s nothing to do with the dining hall. I’d much rather know the name of this demon inhabiting Keleir – something that isn’t mentioned until well past where I called it quits. Then there’s this bit:
“The wrestling ended with Saran mounted atop him, riding along a wave of ecstasy, while Keleir withered beneath her. He sought handfuls of flesh, and his mouth traced wet lines across her chest.”
Um, ew. Do I want to break this down? Of course I do. First off, if a lover ever told me that he wanted to grab “handfuls of flesh”, I’d immediately dump him and promptly alert the FBI of a potential serial killer. Also, don’t just say stuff like “his mouth traced wet lines across her chest” and then say pretty much nothing else before the simultaneous orgasms. That information floating on its own is plain gross. And is Keleir’s “withering” a recurring problem? Are you telling me that these people can contain parasitic world-eating horrors and travel between dimensions but can’t treat erectile dysfunction?
Just save yourselves some time and boredom, folks. Don’t read it. Just don’t.
Cover image and blurb are from BarnesandNoble.com.
The Book Hawk 