GRAVEMAIDENS is an intriguing YA (light) fantasy that completely pulls you in to this other world. Kammani is an aspiring healer in a world where women are undervalued. She lives with her father, once a great healer who was cast out in shame, and her younger and beautiful sister. Her father had failed to heal the Lugal’s (the ruler of Alu) son after he fell out of a window, and so their family wealth was stripped and their son (Kammani’s brother) was taken to work at the palace. Not long after, Kammani’s mother died, and her father turned to drink, leaving her to fend for her family by earning small coins as a healer, working as her father’s apprentice in his stead.

The current lugal is now on his deathbed, and they are choosing the three maidens who will be forced to die alongside him to marry him in the afterlife. Everyone sees this as a great honor, for they will be queens in the next life. However, Kammani does not see it this way and sees only the needless death. When her sister is chosen as one of the three maidens, Kammani is horrified and tries to decide how to save her. The clearest solution is to prevent the lugal’s death, making the death of the maidens unnecessary. As such, she works her way to become his healer and must figure out what is ailing him- or risk losing her sister to death.

The world-building here is really fantastic, and Alu came to life off the pages. There are also a lot of strong characters aside from Kammani. For instance, some of the secondary characters really develop during the story through Kammani’s eyes, such as the princess, Dagan, her childhood friend who wants to marry her, and Nasu, one of the palace guards.

Many of the plot twists were easy to see coming, but Kammani is young and they are more distant in her eyes. She feels like she carries the weight of the world on her shoulders, but this is mainly a burden she has chosen to carry. However, she is also slow to figure things that seem pretty obvious out, but this allows the secondary plots to happen. I still enjoyed every second of this page-turner (as evidenced by my late night/early morning review).

While the main plot is wrapped up, the ending does leave a great lead-in for the next book, and this leaves me eagerly awaiting what will happen next. I would add warnings for sexual assault, torture/terrible punishments, and suicide/murder.

I highly recommend this YA fantasy to people who enjoy THE SELECTION, THE RED QUEEN, and SHATTER ME. This is a fantastic debut, and I look forward to reading more from this talented author in the future!

While this book was definitely intriguing and has a great premise and a unique idea, I did have some minor hiccups with it. It would have benefiitted from some clarity as the world progressed. I don't think I would be able to recommend this as my teens can be kind of sensitive to violence. I also found it difficult to connect with the characters.

Gravemaidens is the book where I discovered I absolutely hate sibling tropes ugh not to take away from the world building which was honestly very good I just don't have fun reading when the main plot of the book is to save a stupid sibling that doesn't want to be saved.

I really enjoyed this book! It wasn't without its faults. I did find the protagonist to be a bit irrational at times. Her family is starving and she won't marry a more well to do boy that she cares for because she wants to work and support them? A bit fanciful of an ideology to put above survival, but oh well, I suppose. However, the story still worked well. I enjoyed it enough to read through it quite quickly. The world building could have used some work, but it was an interesting perspective.

This didn't up being a good fit for me - I have not been enjoying YA as much as I used to, so it feels unfair to criticize it for being YA

I gave this a three out of five stars. I really enjoyed the first book in this duology. I would totally recommend this. I loved the world, the characters, and conflicts. I would buy myself a finished copy. I loved the friend group in here and thst it’s family orientated. .

One of those books that starts of strong but then goes off ways away from where it started.

There is a foundation for a good concept, but the way the story way laid down made it so that it doesn't maximize the potential that it could have had.

Unfortunately I just couldn't get into this one. i tried so many times to pick it up and it just turned out to not be my thing. Giving an average rating because I'm sure some people will love this, and I can't accurately rate a book i couldn't finish. Thank you for the reading opportunity!

I was really hoping I would love this book as I adore the cover and the title and while parts of it were definitely enjoyable, it was mostly just a generic YA fantasy. I might possibly enjoy this at another time but right now it wasn't unique enough.

Kammani has had a hard life, her family cast out of society for an error that had no solution, and now she works as hard as possible to learn the healing arts from her father and keep her remaining family together. When the ruler of the region falls ill, Kammani feels her life spin completely out of her control as her father is summoned to heal the ruler and her sister is chosen to be a death bride to the ruler's afterlife. It seems it is yet again up to Kammani to fix things otherwise many others will lose their lives.

I went into this story blind, having vaguely learned about it when it came out in 2019 when I added it to my to-read list but fast-forward to now and I had no idea what the book was about when I started. Based on the gorgeous cover and the title I will admit I expected a fantasy story but that is not what this is. Instead we have court intrigue and assasination attempts to overthrow a current monarch, lots of evil machination and angst to color the story.

I will say that there was a love interest (kinda sorta against Kammani's will) who was such a great guy, loyal and true even in the face of constant rejection. I was a little miffed at Kammani for her attitude towards her possible love interest as well as love/romance in general, thinking she would have to sacrifice her hopes and dreams to be in a relationship. I wanted her to have it all, and yes, that attitude is completely at odds with the world of women as lesser creatures, but I still wanted her to understand her own (buried) feelings and strive for everything.

Overall this was an interesting idea, very focused on the healing arts, court issues, family dynamics as well as the position of women in society. Keep in mind that this is the first in a duology so the story is not complete and a possible war is brewing for the next book.

Ahhhhhhhhhh! This was crazy good and the sequel just got better! I really love this cover and I hope other give this book a chance!

Great premise but it the characters didn't grab me and the ending fell flat. It's the first book in a duology so the second book might pull it around, but I'm not interested enough to read it.

Thank you so much to Delacorte Press and NetGalley for the complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!

I wanted to like this book so much, I really did. It has one of the most gorgeous covers ever and the title intrigued me before I even read the synopsis. When I first started reading it, everything was going fine. Yes, I struggled with pronunciations sometimes but I expect that when I’m reading a fantasy book. What I wasn’t ready for was all the gore, sexual assault, and the main character being so blind to what was going on around her. I was constantly screaming in my head at her to open her eyes and realize all the clues that were placed there for her but she still didn’t get it.

I’m only giving this book 3 stars because the storyline did interest me and the author did a great job of building up the world. But this really should have came with trigger warnings and a smarter main character. Maybe I’m jaded by all of the mystery and thriller books I read but if I can figure out the killer right from the get go, it’s not an enjoyable rest of the book for me.

This book has a fantastic premise that is unfortunately overshadowed by an incredibly unlikeable main character.

Truly, I cannot tell you how many times I rolled my eyes at Kammani’s actions. It got to the point that I was actually pleased whenever she was wrong about something because I had come to dislike her that much. My biggest issue with Kammani is her haughtiness around the other characters in this book. She constantly berates them for doing things that give them joy or ignores their own wants and desires because it either interferes with her own goals or she simply decides she disagrees with them.

Kammani is downright terrible to her sister and the love interest Dagan in this book. Her sister isn’t perfect, but Kammani’s unwillingness to simply talk to her sister was beyond frustrating.

Also, I’m not quite sure why there was even a romantic aspect included in this story. Dagan is sweet and kind and will clearly do anything for Kammani, yet she treats him terribly and is convinced a romance with him will only keep her from her work. I didn’t see that at all in his character, quite the opposite actually, and feel this book would have been better without the romance. (Which is a lot, coming from me, who doesn’t usually read books without romance.)

Another thing I want to note: there is an on-the-page instance of sexual assault in this book that had absolutely no use past pure shock value. In fact, I wasn’t even sure what was going on until it was happening and then when it’s thwarted, the characters who witness it take no action against the perpetrator. Furthermore, it was completely unnecessary, as we are already quite aware the perpetrator is not a good person. I just wasn’t sure why it was included.

Finally, I’m not okay with Kammani quite literally being wretched and wrong in all of her assumptions throughout this entire book, then getting a pass at the end. Good deeds or not, accountability is important and I’m not sure she was truly held accountable. It’s unfortunate to see this lack of accountability included in a YA novel.

Other than that, I had some trouble keeping track of who the various characters were in this – as the personalities of many tend to blend together and get blurred. Less characters or more definable personalities would have served this well.

I’m disappointed that this book didn’t live up to my expectations, as I’d been looking forward to reading it when it was released. Unfortunately I just can’t give the main character a pass in this one.

Pretty standard YA fantasy, but if you like that, you'll love this book, because the writing is well done. An ok performance for a first novel

Gravemaidens is another victim of poor worldbuilding and a paper-thin plot. One simple change could have improved this book: just don’t make your main character a special snowflake.

Kammani lives in an ancient civilization that has a well-established tradition of sacrificing three maidens when their ruler dies so they can accompany him into the afterlife. Everyone sees this as an honour but not Kammani. She’s not like other citizens. She can see that this is really a death sentence. Why is she completely immune to the cultural zeitgeist and is able to rise above her feeble fellow citizens to reach such intellectual heights? Well you will go to your grave asking that question. She gets to bask in her moral superiority and repeatedly condescend to everyone who is excited about this tradition. When the ruler of the city falls ill, Kammani’s sister Nanaea is chosen as one of these maidens so Kammani is determined to heal him to save her sister. Also, Nanaea is just unnecessarily cruel to her sister and I have no idea why.

We are told (in the description) that there will be scheming and danger and political intrigue at the palace., but of course that intrigue is just the most generic plot. When Kammani arrives at the palace she witnesses the trial and harsh punishment of a woman who broke the law and Kammani is shocked SHOCKED I say at the cruel punishment. Girl did you not grow up in this city? How are you so oblivious to its rules and customs? It’s also incredibly convenient that this happens as soon as Kammani arrives. Kammani is often in the right place at the right time to move the plot along. She was clearly born to be a protagonist.

Of course we need a love interest and it certainly doesn’t help this story that he is as dull as a butter knife, but I was still annoyed at Kammani for treating him so unfairly. She can’t decide whether she wants to be with him or not so instead of making a decision or explaining her conflicting feelings, she quite literally just runs away anytime he tries to talk to her about their relationship. Way to lead him on for an entire book.

If this book just switched up the story a bit and made it so that Kammani slowly realized over the course of the book that this sacrificial tradition isn’t as honourable as she thought now that her sister’s life is on the line, that would at least have been a reasonable premise. It wouldn’t have fixed all its other problems but at least it’s a start.

Excellent series starter with emotionally-packed twists and strong character development. And wonderfully unique with the ancient Sumerian setting. Loved this book!

I deduced not to read this book due to its publication date and my purpose for reading/reviewing. Others who have read it have liked it.

Great story and loved the romance. Loved the cast of characters and how the story came to be. Great story and I would read this author again.

This book took me a loooooooong time to get through. I didn't really enjoy any of the characters, but I felt obliged to keep reading. The violence was intense, I spent most of my time reading this book grimacing. The characters felt really flat to me and I don't think I will be recommending this one anytime soon.