The wounds an honest tongue can open sometimes take a lifetime to heal
- Release date : April 29th 2021
- Publishing house : HarperVoyager
- Series : Book of the Ice
- Pages : 448
Spoilers ahead
If you want to read my review about The Girl and the Stars, head here
Characters :
Yaz : Yaz was a character I’ve enjoyed following. All these years of living as an Itcha taught her a way to live on the ice and it’s always hard if not impossible for some people to overcome this habit. You always have automatic reflexes or thoughts you want to follow because it’s all you have ever known and was for you the most efficient way to live. Overcoming her past will prove essential for Yaz to see her quest through and to become her own person.
Steady progress. That was the Ictha way. Any task could be overcome by steady, unrelenting progress.
I felt that Yaz opened up more during this book. Maybe because she assumed the role of a leader and had to care for her team despite what her clan’s teachings told her.
Story :
Yaz and some of her friends are now above ground and ready to go to the green lands. She is imprisoned within the Black Rock inside of which she discovers how the Hidden God’s followers wish to use her to wage a war on those living in the only green part of the corridor. With her newfound powers and the help of her friends, she escapes the priest, Seus (the mind of a mad city) and the Hidden God. En route for the green lands, she will meet people who will change her objectives in order to protect the world she has known and its inhabitants.
Memory is the scaffold on which we assemble ourselves.
I had even more fun with the mix of fantasy and science fiction within The Girl and the Mountain. The way everything fits into the world really was creative and interesting. I wouldn’t like to face the creatures roaming the ice and the underground passages.
In terms of pacing, the book starts off quickly as we follow three characters (Yaz, Thurin and Quell) going to the Black Rock or getting out of underneath the ice. Then their little group joined by several others of their friends set out for the green lands across the ice. Most of the book is about them trudging through the icy winds, trying to get away from all their enemies below the ice and on the ice. This part was the slowest but I think it matches all the plodding they’ve been doing and all that. I’d say that the last part of the book was the one I liked the most. When our characters finally emerged onto the green lands, I was really glad to find some characters back!
Hope is sometimes the cruelest knife in the torture’s collection.
There were a lot of things to like in this second book. For me, the most interesting thing was the expansion of the world (history, technology, powers…). It was a superb mix of science fiction, fantasy and also mythology. I wasn’t expecting this kind of cliffhanger and there were so many questions firing in my mind.
L'Antre de la Fantasy 