This book makes no sense.

The dramatic reveals seem completely disconnected from the worldbuilding, like they're shoehorned in to prop up the plot. They don't make sense within the larger context of the world the characters inhabit.

Three examples:

1. White Hands gives the seed that will be born as Deka to Deka's mother and sends Deka to a rural part of the empire to be born and grow up. Given that there are independent deathshrieks raising other alaki outside of the empire, as well the Nbari region (where Adwapa and Asha come from) worshipping the Gilded Ones and largely outside the empire's direct control, it makes no sense that White Hands would run the risk of having Deka raised inside the empire itself.

2. The alaki-in-training are sent out to kill deathshrieks repeatedly, even though the deathshrieks are what they themselves become when they die. (They're "on the same side.") White Hands and the Nbari twins know this, and yet they kill the deathshrieks anyway; the narrative justification for having done this is that they needed to do this to get the emperor's approval for building an army of alaki to go to where the deathshrieks are gathering. But it's unclear why they would even need a full army, given that Deka alone is able to free the goddesses. If she were raised outside of the empire and then went to the goddesses' prison stealthily, she could have freed them without the need to kill hundreds of her own kind. She could even have brought a small army of the alaki who live with the deathshrieks outside of the empire with her as protection. (The book does at least explain that the deathshrieks themselves wouldn't be able to travel stealthily because they would be thrown into a killing rage by the scent of human fear if they encountered any humans.)

3. The king reveals during his fight with Deka that any male descendants of the goddesses are jatu who can move with superhuman speed and strength, and yet Deka had no idea of this before their fight. This ignorance makes no sense. If there really were people with superhuman speed there would have been legends of them in popular culture, and if Deka was trained to fight by White Hands (who clearly know of the existence of these jatu), then she would have been forewarned.

(Sorry for any spelling differences for proper nouns. I listened to the audiobook.)

The Gilded Ones - Likewise Book Reviews

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