About the Book
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Authors:
- Amie Kaufman
- Meagan Spooner
- Genres:
- Boy-Girl Romance
- Fantasy
- Science Fiction
Cover Story: Purrfect
BFF Charms: Friend With Benefits, Torn
Talky Talk: Smartwatch Meets Scroll
Bonus Factors: LGBTQ+, Loyal Pet
Anti-Bonus Factor: Religious Fanaticism
Relationship Status: Not My Goddess
Cover Story: Purrfect
Our two main characters look just like they’re described, and so does Alciel floating above those beautiful sunset clouds, but the cat’s tail weaving through the title lettering is hands down (paws down?) my favorite part.
The Deal:
Prince North of Alciel wants to help his people, if only they would take him seriously. The ancient technology that powers their floating kingdom is slowly failing, and no one knows why. North is convinced he’ll find answers on their planet’s surface, from which his ancestors fled a thousand years ago. Having his glider sabotaged and crash-landing it past repair, though? That wasn’t part of his plan … and neither was getting rescued by a girl who thinks she’s a goddess.
Nimhara, Forty-Second Vessel of the Living Divine, wants to help her people, if only they believed in her. Chosen to serve as her people’s goddess when she was five years old, her powers still undeveloped at sixteen, Nimh doubts herself as much as any of the followers of a rival goddess out to destroy her. Worse, a toxic force called the Mist is killing and mutating people and animals, and there’s nothing she can do to help. An ancient prophecy reads that a star falling from the sky could help her save the world. North and his crashed flying machine could be just the sign she’s hoping for – except that he doesn’t believe in gods or prophecies and treats her like an ordinary person.
Magic or science, fate or choice – which is real? Either way, they’ll have to work together, before Nimh’s rival and whoever damaged North’s glider come after them both.
BFF Charms: Friend With Benefits, Torn
North is what we might call a “bicon”, although his world probably has different slang for that. His interests include fashion, parties, aeronautics, helping his kingdom, and kissing his male and female best friends (not necessarily in that order). He keeps his wits about him even while lost and terrified in a foreign country. He respects Nimh’s religious prohibitions completely even though he doesn’t believe in them, and is always finding ways to show how he cares for her as a person instead of a goddess.
My heart went out to Nimh from the first chapter. Being a goddess is incredibly lonely work. She’s not allowed to even touch another human being. The closest she has to a parent is her high priest, and she still suspects him of using her as a political pawn. She loves her people enough to endure all this, even though secretly all she wants is a riverboat and a family of her own. She’ll do anything to save her world … even fulfill a prophecy that says it needs to be destroyed before being remade.
Swoonworthy Scale: 7
Nimh makes it clear from the beginning that touching her is the worst thing anyone could do, and North respects that. When they’re walking through tight spaces, he warns her before they bump into each other. At the edge of a cliff, he grabs her spear instead of her hand to pull her up. That doesn’t mean he can’t tie up her dress in the back (slowly), or give her his jacket (that smells like him) when it’s cold, or describe (vividly) what a kiss feels like when she asks. You know the chemistry is real when you’re blushing at the mere suggestion of a touch.
Talky Talk: Smartwatch Meets Scroll
North and Nimh’s first-person narrative styles each suit their respective genre: North more casual and with references to technology (also, he says “Skyfall!” when he swears) and Nimh more formal and poetic, as befits someone who’s been studying ancient scriptures all her life.
Bonus Factor: LGBTQ+
At the start of the story (before meeting Nimh), North wants to officially commit to his boyfriend and girlfriend, but his mothers, the Queen and Princess Consort, forbid it. Even a futuristic, queer-affirming monarchy is still a monarchy, and with the crown prince in a throuple with another man, DNA tests or no, public opinion would still doubt the legitimacy of their children. Preserving the royal bloodline is important to Alciel, and later in the series, we’ll find out exactly why. A lot of fantasy or sci-fi authors tend to extremes – dystopian or utopian – when they write about LGBTQ+ issues (or ignore them altogether) but Kaufman and Spooner fit them logically into the worldbuilding and plot.
Bonus Factor: Loyal Pet
Nimh lives with a cat, whom she rescued after finding him tied in a sack. He’s been protecting her ever since, and not only from mice – he senses disloyalty in a certain character before anyone else does. Since the touch taboo doesn’t apply to animals, she’s allowed to hold and pet him, which means a lot to her. North calls him nicknames like “Captain Fluffypants”, and since he’s not used to animals in his artificial city, he assumes the cat is sapient. Nimh doesn’t correct him, either because it’s funny, or – since mutant creatures with strange abilities do exist on this planet – because he actually might be. Who knows? Only the cat, and he’s not telling.
Anti-Bonus Factor: Religious Fanaticism
The traditions of the people on the surface have kept them going for a thousand years through war, famine and toxic Mist. They’ve also led to taking a five-year-old child away from her mother, isolating her from her peers, and making her set her own broken arm after an accident. Nimh’s priests taught her that holding a boy’s hand would be desecration, and the apocalypse something to look forward to. As for her rival, the “false goddess” Inshara – without getting into spoilers, let’s just say the temple’s laws have made her life even harder than Nimh’s, warping her mind as a result. North sums up the Inshara cult’s methods very neatly: “You wish people didn’t have to die, but apparently sometimes they do.”
Relationship Status: Not My Goddess
Dear Book, I like you far too much to worship you. I’m glad you don’t have a taboo against being read.
Literary Matchmaking
The Isles of the Gods (The Isles of the Gods #1) by Amie Kaufman also features a charming prince and not-so-charming religious conflict.
The Ballad of Ami Miles by Kristy Dallas Alley is also about a girl learning to question the fundamentalists who raised her.
The Only Girl In Town by Allie Condie also celebrates the therapeutic powers of cats.
FTC Full Disclosure: I received no compensation for this review.
