I enjoyed The Gilded Ones a lot. This story covers sexism and patriarchal systems and how female empowerment overcomes those obstacles.

The Gilded Ones is a good young adult fantasy book. The fantasy aspect was something I’ve never seen before. There were different animal mixes, monsters, and a magic system that was extremely creative and original. I also liked the diversity of the people who lived in Otera. The characters aren’t strictly dark-skinned. Depending on what region they were from, their skin color ranged from pale pink to dark cocoa.

The characters were likable. Deka was a strong main character who refused to be limited to what she thought she knew. I liked witnessing her growth throughout the story. I liked the side characters as well. I loved the female friendships between Deka and the other girls at the alaki camp. They were so motivating and supportive of one another. I thought it was a nice touch to the story.

The Gilded Ones surprised me in many ways. As a young adult book, I was not expecting the amount of violence and themes that were covered. It was shocking to read what some of the girls had to endure.

The mystery surrounding Deka was intriguing. I followed the breadcrumbs and started to piece together the clues as the story went on, but I was still surprised when everything was revealed.

As much as I enjoyed reading The Gilded Ones, there were a few things that bothered me. There was a romance included that was nice, but not necessary. I think it would’ve been better if it wasn’t introduced at all. I believe that fantasy books don’t need a romance subplot and I think The Gilded Ones would’ve been a great read without it.

I like fast-paced books, but this book hit the ground running and didn’t slow down. I felt like the plot was rushed, which left me confused at some parts. Along with that, the time passed by too quickly. We barely get time witnessing Deka and her training as an alaki. She and her friends are progressing so rapidly that we miss out on that WOW factor. It was hard to believe that Deka went from timid village girl with zero fighting background to this badass warrior in a matter of a few chapters. I would’ve liked to see the progression, see more of the training she went through. I would’ve liked to see her try and fail before succeeding in the way that she did.

I feel like we got A LOT for one book. I honestly feel like we didn’t need everything that we got right now. Part of this plot could’ve been saved for book two and then there would’ve been more room for other aspects to be fleshed out. It makes me wonder what Namina Forna has planned for book two.

All in all, I had fun with The Gilded Ones. It was creative, it had mystery and it was very action-packed. I’ll be looking out for book two, whenever that’ll be released.

The Gilded Ones starkly set out a society brutally oppressive to women through religious control. Purity tests at the age of 15 check for “demonic” blood that literally bleeds gold. The violence that Deka faces in the opening sequence is tame compared to what others in her situation face before they are collected at the training ground of Warthu Bera. They prepare under the watchful eye of the enigmatic White Hands whose secrets may hold salvation for all of them or betrayal and “the final death”. Presented with the stark choice: train to hunt deathshrieks or face the death mandate, all choose the only real option. Deka and her growing band of bloodsisters are drawn deeper into a fight not just to destroy their enemies but for the freedom of every woman. They also work to discover the truths of their entire kingdom and the role they may yet play to restore the goddesses of old.

A powerful feminist coming of age story sure to be popular with fans of Kingdom of Souls, the Grace Year and Throne of Glass. Prepare yourself. The cruelty is vicious. A 9-12 selection, the opening sequence of violence inflicted upon Deka is horrific and agonizing, though necessary to the plot. The world building is tremendous. The relationships are complex and authentic. The tension built around who can be trusted is taut without being gimmicky. Ultimately, Deka forges a place in the world built on friendship, love and trust in a world that has stolen all of these from her through violence. A powerful redemptive arc.

I'm pleasantly surprised by this book. The writing is strong, the main character of Deka shows good growth in her life view and her self awareness, and there are some good supporting characters. The book starts strongly with describing how she fails the purity test and what the consequences are. After she's 'saved' and recruited as an Emperor's warrior, the second half of the book is a bit more militaristic (is that a word?)

As a YA book, I think it does a great job of illustrating a strong, repressive patriarchal society and then how Deka and other young girls learn there are different ways to think of being a woman as their world view widens. I think a good ground level was laid for the world building in this installment; I 'll be interested to see if it's filled in more in the next book. There's the obligatory developing love story that is very mild and incidental to the story. The focus was more on the developing and relying on girlfriend relationships which is a nice switch....there were no 'mean girls' so that's a positive impact for young girl readers.

By the way, I liked the way the book ended - it was a logical conclusion to what had been happening, you know which characters are staying around for the next book, but it wasn't such a cliffhanger that I felt incomplete.

Definitely recommended. - the review will appear on my blog the end of January. and on Amazon after publication

What an excellent debut fantasy YA novel. I loved the characters, the story, the plot twists, all of it. It was colorful and heartfelt and I really did enjoy reading this book. The pace flowed well, and overall the characters developed in a natural way. The story wraps up just enough at the end to be satisfied about a number of elements, but leaves the reader curious about what will happen in the sequel.

I received this book through participation with the Book Terminal Tours, and my post of this book will go live on my Instagram https://www.instagram.com/ariel_reads/ on February 6th, 2021. A huge thank you to Book Terminal Tours, Netgalley, and Random House Children's for a copy of this book!

Actual rating: 4.5 stars

The Gilded Ones is an ambitious YA debut that verges on dark fantasy as it takes on war, violence, trauma and xenophobia from within a deeply patriarchal, oppressively religious society. This is a book I've been anticipating for a very long time and while it wasn't perfect, it was very, very good.

Deka is awaiting a ritual ceremony that will determine whether her blood is pure. If it runs red, she will become a full-fledged woman and begin covering her face. If it runs gold, she has demon blood and will be subjected to execution or joining the emperors army. (hint: it's not red)

I don't want to say too much about what happens because this is a book that really sucks you in and is quite fast paced. However, you should know that this book contains a great deal of violence and can be quite disturbing at times. Death, torture, dismemberment, sexual assault, war violence, etc. is throughout. (although most of the sexual assault occurs off page, we see a lot of the ptsd that results from it) The world is interesting, the magic is interesting, and there are great characters with strong bonds of sisterhood. It grapples with difficult subjects and explores topics including how children can be drawn into battle, the trauma and coping mechanisms we see in those exposed to such brutality, and the ways that oppressive teachings can enable violence against women and self-hatred. Thematically this is incredibly rich and does not flinch from difficult experiences.

However, I did struggle a bit with the ending. Though to be fair it's got to be tough to really nail the landing in such an ambitious project for a first time author. That said, some of the twists at the end weren't fully explained, nor were all of their ramifications adequately dealt with. Characters accepted things too easily and there weren't enough obstacles before things wrapped up in a relatively tidy bow. I don't want to get more specific than that because of spoilers, but suffice to say that most of this book was SO good, I had very high expectations of what the ending was going to do. And while the ending was fine, it was a bit of a letdown. Otherwise, this probably would have been a favorite of the year. That said, I still think this is well worth your time and Namina Forna is an author to keep an eye on! I received an advance copy of this book for review via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

This was fantastic! A dark YA fantasy that kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time. Honestly, I am a bit surprised it was marketed as YA because it reads more adult with some darker themes. Be warned of potential trigger warnings such as *death, sexual assault, family trauma, parental rejection, torture*

Deka is a fantastically flawed main character. She is strong and weak at the same time, which is so relatable and realistic.

The found family/friendships in this book are beautiful, and one of my favorite parts of the story! Seeing women supporting and helping one another is a beautiful thing.

The romance in this book is well done in my opinion. It is sweet, not angsty, and very much on the back burner which is exactly what I love!

The magic is so unique and I just love that everything we think we know, gets flipped and changed and we keep learning more through the whole book.

All in all, this is a fantastic YA fantasy and I HIGHLY recommend picking it up when it comes out.

Yeah, this wasn't for me. I'm so sad about that though as I was really highly anticepating this book. I just think this book was very mediocre and meh. I just never really got pulled into the story or felt any real connection to the characters. They all just felt really flat to me. I also feel like there were a lot of cuts in the plot where a lot of developement and world building happened and it just made me feel even more disconnected to anything that was going on. The romance was also very poorly developed. A lot of the twists came absolutely out of nowhere and ever single character went along with everything so easily and that just didn't feel very realistic. I do really like the world and magic system though. It very interesting and different from anything I've ever read before. I just wish we could have gotten more of it. I also think that these books in an extremely sexist society just aren't for me anymore as it just got too much for me in this book. Anyway, I won't be continueing on in this series as I was pretty satisfied with how this ended.

I absolutely loved Deka's journey. Her journey of self discovery as well as her journey across her realm was expansive and fraught with danger, adventure, and discovery. The relationships she loses and gains, as well as her personal development from a girl into a warrior and into a woman was moving and touching - she is fierce. This is a fantastic YA fantasy that verges on an epic scale I wouldn't normally equivocate with YA. I think readers of all ages will enjoy this story. I am eagerly awaiting the next installment into this diverse and mystical world of goddesses, men, and demons.

Would absolutely recommend to fans of Mercedes Lackey and Sabaa Tahir, idk, Xena, fierce fighting femmes, mythology and multi-cultural, YA fantasy.

Thank you to publisher for providing me an e-copy via Netgalley.

[3 Stars]

-- Thank you NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review --

I think that this was an enjoyable YA fantasy. It had nice worldbuilding + lore, a pleasant story arc, and the couple of twists thrown in at the end were believable and exciting. I suspected a couple of them, but I still found them satisfying nonetheless. Suspecting a twist is a good indicator to me that the book was written well because it shows that the author took the time to write in enough evidence that the twist is logical. Also, I found the book to be extremely fast-paced. Despite this book being over 400 pages, I still finished it in roughly a day and a half. Normally I get tired or bored after a while of reading, but with this one, I just flew through it.
Despite all the things I loved about this, there still were a couple of things that took away from the overall impact of the story for me. First thing, I thought the romance was extremely instalovey. I personally would have found it much more satisfying and impactful if Deka and (name withheld for the sake of potentially spoiling something) were just really good friends. And then a romance built up over the trilogy's progression.
Second thing, the middle part of the book got repetitive. I found that the characters were asking the same couple of questions over and over, which just made it kind of feel like I was reading the same chapter on a loop. I think all the questions and mystery surrounding Deka, her powers, her mother, etc were super valid and definitely pertained to the main storyline, I just didn't care to re-read them as many times as I did.
Lastly, when the final twist was revealed and White Hands finally started explaining and answering questions.........I couldn't help but feel like there had to have been a better way for her to go about this plan. I just think that the way everything was laid out lead to too many unnecessary deaths that could have been avoided in many ways. Deka was made out to be this 'betrayer' but with her level of knowledge, she had no idea that anything she was doing was wrong. White Hands was the main betrayer imo. And then when all is revealed, everyone is just like, "aww I feel guilty" and then they move on. Idk, it just felt weird.

Overall, I would still recommend this to people. I don't think that the things I took issue with are universal by any means, so take my opinions with a grain of salt. There's a lot to love here and I think Namina Forna did a nice job with her debut novel.

Everything Deka dreamed about her future is suddenly and painfully ripped from her during her coming of age ceremony. Life looks different on this side-- in an instant, Deka becomes despised by her family and friends. As her world shifts, so does her perspective and preconceived notions.
Forna does a fantastic job of building a setting and culture that is close enough to ours that we can relate but so utterly different from anything else I've read about. The Gilded Ones will leave readers pondering all that is wrong in our own world. Yes, this is book one of a series, yet the ending is completely satisfying.

A gorgeous and wholly original debut fantasy that I can see becoming a cult favorite in the YA world.

Brutal, magical, and a powerful tale of sisterhood.

Namina Forna is a force to be reckoned with with this story. Can’t wait to see where the sequel takes us.

Thank you for the opportunity.

I was going to give this book four stars until I read the last 30%. That part was so good I have no other choice but to give it five stars.

The Gilded Ones follows Deka, a young girl about to go through a ritual that every girl her age does to see if she has "pure blood" or "impure blood". When beasts called Deathshrieks shows up, Deka ends up showing everyone in her village that she isn't "normal". Her eyes changed color and she managed to control the Deathshrieks. Immediately, the men capture her and torture her in horrible ways... In the end, a woman finds her and offers her the possibility to fight in the Emperor's army as an Alaki. There she will learn to fight and kill Deathshrieks but everything is not what is seems like and slowly but surely Deka will find out the truth about her world and its history and what she can do to change it for the better.

Overall, this was a really great read that stood out among the sea of YA Fantasy that can be a little too generic some of the times. I loved the characters, the women and the plot of this book and I'm excited for the next one. I hope I'll have the chance to read it as an ARC like this one. Fingers crossed :)

(Thank you for letting me read and review an ARC via Netgalley)

2.5/5 stars

My feelings about this book are so, so mixed. I really enjoy the premise and the message of the story, as well as the character growth. What turned me off was the fact that the writing is very much tell rather than show, with the narrator coming to conclusions rather suddenly and emphasizing the same points multiple times throughout the book. There is a lot of potential in the world-building, characters, and plot that intrigued me enough to keep going, but unfortunately, I couldn't get truly invested.

🖤🖤 Book Review 🖤🖤

Sixteen-year-old Deka lives in fear and anticipation of the blood ceremony that will determine whether she will become a member of her village. Already different from everyone else because of her unnatural intuition, Deka prays for red blood so she can finally feel like she belongs.

But on the day of the ceremony, her blood runs gold, the color of impurity–and Deka knows she will face a consequence worse than death.

Then a mysterious woman comes to her with a choice: stay in the village and submit to her fate, or leave to fight for the emperor in an army of girls just like her. They are called alaki–near-immortals with rare gifts. And they are the only ones who can stop the empire's greatest threat.

Knowing the dangers that lie ahead yet yearning for acceptance, Deka decides to leave the only life she's ever known. But as she journeys to the capital to train for the biggest battle of her life, she will discover that the great walled city holds many surprises. Nothing and no one are quite what they seem to be–not even Deka herself

What I liked:
-The Alaki! These girls are so resilient despite the horrible things they have endured! It was really special to see them band together and protect/support one another. This book has some strong feminist vibes and I was loving it!
-The pacing was superb. I love when a story hits the ground running! It was a very fast paced book and I found myself wanting to read just one more chapter to see what happened next.

What I didn’t like:
-There is some pretty heavy content at times. The girls in these books have not had easy lives and I would say there may be some trigger warnings here.
-Time jumps! I wish we could have seen more of the girls training and their growth as a unit!
-I thought some characters belief systems changed really easily and it kind of took away from the story line a bit for me...
-the ending felt a little rushed to me. Everything wrapped up really quickly and cleanly. Which is great for the characters I’m just not sure what’s next now that it ended the way it did.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and I definitely think it’s worth the read!

This story was so beautifully and richly told. I'm sad to say that I don't believe I've read a book inspired by Ancient West Africa, but I'm so glad I found this book to introduce me to this rich cultural history.

I will say I was apprehensive about this book going in, for the sole reason that I don't read YA anymore. But I was drawn in by the cover and the description and I'm so glad I decided to give it a shot. Deka is such an enchanting character that is sure to stick with me for a long time. I think she is probably my favorite thing about this book. Even though she's a teenage going through something I could never experience, I still felt a connection with her.

I would recommend this book to pretty much anyone: young or old, YA reader or not, fantasy fan or not. It's too good to pass up.

I loved this. The premise was so unique. And so was the world and the powers that people had. I liked the message too. I love Deka as a character and her friendships with all the girls (and the boys too). My fave was Ixa. I am definitely planning to read the next one.

Rating is 3.5 rounded down to 3 stars.

I did like reading The Gilded Ones, but the book wasn't really for me in the end. I'm in the phase where I'm transitioning out of reading YA books and switching to adult books. My thoughts on the book have nothing to do with how Namina Forna wrote the book. Namina Forna created a really interesting, fantastical world in The Gilded Ones. The background information on how the alaki were created and who they really were was interesting. Again, this is no fault of Namina Forna. It is me. I'm at the point where YA books aren't really my type of book anymore.

However, I do recommend this book to someone who is interested in Goddesses (whether they really like Greek, Roman, Egyptian, etc.). Forna creates her own Goddess system and makes it interesting. I think this book would be really interesting to someone who is still very interested in YA books. There is some heavy material (all of which has been mentioned in content warnings on the book's StoryGraph page), which is why I'm not recommending it to younger YA readers.

DNF @ 10% due to graphic violence and triggering content. I think this book would highly benefit from including trigger warnings, as I hadn't expected any of that from the synopsis.

This was alright, but I don't necessarily feel like it did anything new or fun or exciting. Same YA fantasy plot, different characters. I like the strong female lead character and the overall message, but in general, it feels a bit recycled. The cover is STUNNING and probably one of my faves of 2021 so far!

Released February 9th, 2021.
Preorder from a black-owned book store:
https://lithub.com/you-can-order-today-from-these-black-owned-independent-bookstores/

Wow! What can I say about this book. The cover is absolutely stunning and drew me in immediately. The world-building was well described although very brutal against women. The main character, Deka, is brave beyond her years as are all of the female characters in this book. You can feel the bond among the characters throughout the book. though. The story does take a definite turn that I wasn't expecting that was intriguing and held my attention. An awesome book and I think it will appeal to YA readers. Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for a free ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.