I got this as an ARC from NetGally. This is the first book I have read by Namina Forna. Honestly, this book is so amazing and so much more than I anticipated! The world building and characters are truly wonderful! There were so many twists and turns, I couldn't put it down.

I want to thank NetGalley and Random House Kids for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Firstly, let me state that Namina Forna creates this very diverse cast of characters with different physical characteristics, attitudes, life experiences and voices that makes for a fabulous story. I found myself liking the world and growing with Deka, our main character, as she goes from timid and beaten to strong and aware. This was a feminist one-two punch or action and heart that I feel could have been quite impact if not for the technical issues.

Disclaimer: I was sent the eBook format and I often find that eBooks have weird things going on. This book, however, had entire repeated sentences, inconsistent action and dialog tags that were used way too often to fit properly. I GREATLY look forward to this book when it comes out on it's new publication date in 2021 because if what I read was going to be released in two-ish weeks, I would have been upset when my pre-order came in.

Pros!
- As mentioned before, this book has amazing characters when it comes to all the Bloodsisters, some of the Jatu fell short. The many women in this story, the focus, are all so different and special in their own ways. Deka as a main character was endearing. A girl raised in a small town up north finds that all the nonsense about women being less are wrong. I enjoyed her journey from meek to powerful and the ONLY thing I'd ask them to revise is maybe show her questioning before she starts declaring herself an accepting demon.
- Great in-universe lore and mythology. I mean, honestly it is great.
- I think they handled the topic of trauma very well for the time they gave it.
- the ending was satisfying and left room for more epic adventures in future stories.

Cons!
- the technical issues (in the eBook version I received) are kind of just... bad. It makes it seem like the editors did not care. I KNOW that's not true but, I can only review what I saw. There were several typos in the first few chapters, repeating sentences and action inconsistencies that simply should not have been overlooked. And I know all authors have the one phrase they cannot stop using but Deka sure rasps a lot in this book.
- There is a massive exposition dump near the end of the story that could have been fed to the reader in parts throughout the first two thirds. I fully understand wanting a big reveal but some of reveals were things we should have had some inkling of at the beginning.
- If you watch anime then you'll fully understand why the sudden power creep was jarring. Again, the expansion and explanation of abilities could have been spread out for a smoother entry to the end of the book.
- Personal, but this is not a MG book, it's young adult. There is enough gore mentioned that this is definitely YA. I'm seeing it put down as MG in some places and no.

That all being said, I loved what Namina Forna was going for here. This was, at it's beautiful core, a story about feminism, sisterhood, growth and allowing yourself to be whatever you are. Embrace what makes you different instead of hiding it away for someone else's benefit. That message is powerful and does shine through. Based solely on the version given to me, this book received 2.5 out of 5 stars. Rounded up to a three simply because I did leave it feeling like the good guys won and that made me happy.

The author begins the book with a lovely author's note that states that the purpose of this book was to examine the patriarchy and who does and doesn’t thrive under it, and also how it can hurt so many people. Having now read the book, I can say that she definitely succeeded, and I am impressed at how she answered while still making this an incredibly fun and exciting book. This is definitely a dark and violent story and some of the ways that the deaths were described surprised me for a young adult book, but the author manages to do all this without making everything seem too grimdark. This book is definitely unique (I was surprised at many of the twists and turns and truly felt like I was along for the ride), and I felt so empowered while reading it. The book isn’t about forgetting trauma, but finding acceptance with yourself and how that can help healing.

My big complaint about the book is that some aspects at the end seemed too rushed, like the final showdown ended very quickly. And while this isn’t so much of a complaint as a minor quibble, I also thought that some of the romance aspect of the book I was more told than shown, although I loved the love interest. In general, the writing could be stilted and repetitive and definitely involved more telling than showing. As I told a friend, the writing was just kind of there and didn’t do it any favors but also didn’t hurt it any, it was the type of writing that could either be saved or ruined by the story. Ultimately, the story being told was enough to save the writing.

The true strength of this book was Deka’s relationship with her sisters, and just the richness of all the women in general. I am a sucker for found families and found plenty here.

I was on the fence about requesting this from Netgalley, but in the end I decided to give it a shot and I am so glad I did! This is one of the better fantasy novels I've read in a while and I have a feeling it will be one of the best fantasies of 2020. The main character, Deka, grows exponentially throughout the novel and it was such a joy to read. She starts out pretty unsure of herself and takes the teachings of her village and country as gospel. When her blood runs the impure gold instead of the pure red, she accepts it when everyone around her tells her she is a demon and sentences her to the Death Mandate. However, she is offered a reprieve in the form of a mysterious stranger who tells her she can go with her and join the emperor's army to fight the monsters that have been wreaking havoc on the kingdom of Otera. As Deka grows into her training she makes discoveries along the way that change her perspective of everything she knew to be true. By the end Deka becomes one of the stronger characters I have read about. Being able to see the transformation she undergoes as a character was probably my favorite part of this novel. I truly cannot wait until the sequel to see where the story goes next. This was a great start to what promises to be a fantastic young adult series. I think all fans of fantasy and strong female characters would find a new favorite in The Gilded Ones!

WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA. You cannot hit me with a book like this!

This book was crazy. I mean beyond crazy. From the beginning of the book I had no idea what direction the book was taking and I definitely can say that it had twists and turns that no one could possibly see coming.

Al in all, this was the complex and dark world that I want in fantasy books. We have a protagonist that has a head on her shoulders and does things true to her heart. I gave this an extra star as I let the story marinate after I finished. It stayed with me days later, and that is how I know what I experienced was worth it. I feel like my words don't do justice to how I feel.

I also love how your opinion changes throughout the book. It's not just clear cut 'good' and 'bad' by the end, you really begin to understand the choices and decisions that the main character must make. Fantasy books can often overwhelm you with the sheer expanse of the worlds they're set in. But this book doesn't do that. It has a wonderful focus on the specific places it visits, and because of this you are really able to imagine what's going on.

Overall an absolutely fantastic OWN VOICES fantasy with plenty of diversity rep in a unique world.

4.5 out of 5 stars!
I received this ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review from NetGalley.

What first interested me in this book was the cover, and then my interest only grew as I read the summary. I thought the worldbuilding was fantastic. The writing was emotional and compelling, The violence is well-described-- enough to put you on edge, though certainly not the violence porn that fills too many books.

Deka is definitely not a flat character, and her relationships with other seem real and built. Characters are not just props to show off how fantastic she is! While Deka is talented in a way that no one else is, it's not unbelivable to see how she could achieve the things she has. The twists near the end were all neatly foreshadowed and well-laid out.

A great book, and a fun read! Some of the plans of characters might be a bit confusing, but it went well.

The Gilded Ones is a wholly original fantasy set in a world with problems that feel all too real. This is a story of women, friendships, loyalty, and unconditional love.

The characters around Deka are some of the best - I wish I knew them. I loved that there was no bullying of each other when they got to the training; it was all supportive, and they understood they were all in the same boat. There is romance, and although it is not a central plot point, it feels very natural to the story.

I usually do not enjoy reading books where the main character has to overcome a lifetime of brainwashing, but I feel like this book handled it wonderfully and moved at a quick pace.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for letting me read this one! It was amazing - I was captured from page one.

I first wanted to read this book because the cover is one of the most stunning ones I’ve ever seen. I tried to temper my expectations, because I know what a disappointment that can be. Cover buys are never a great idea. Then I saw it was available on Net Galley and applied for a copy. I was excited to get a chance to read it and decide if the cover was worth the buy. Let me tell you, it is definitely worth it! I want to run to the store and buy a finished copy ASAP! I can’t believe this was a debut novel. It’s one of my favorite YA fantasy novels I’ve read in a while. This is how feminism is done! I absolutely loved the girl power in this book. I also loved all of the diversity. The story was so unique, like nothing I’ve read before. I cannot wait for more stories from Namina Forna! This is a definite recommend!

I love the theme of The Gilded One, which is female empowerment. We follow our MC, Deka as she struggles to embrace what she is.

Deka was born into a world where women are subservient to men. A women’s place is in the home, they are not educated, do not work, are to have a male escort outside of their homes, must wear masks to cover the top part of their faces, and must undergo a purity ceremony to ensure their blood is pure.

Of course, Deka’s Ritual of Purity does not go as planned, and our story begins.

There are great friendships, a cute romance, adorable creatures, and a worthy cause in this novel.

While I definitely enjoyed this book, I did find myself longing for more world-building. At the end of the book, I found myself unable to visualize the deathshrieks (a major creature in the story), the lord Equus, and many of the other magical creatures. When these creatures we're first seen, only a sentence or two was provided concerning their appearance, and since these are original creatures, I would have liked more descriptions. I don't think everyone would be bothered by the above, I just really like descriptions.

I am super excited for the sequel I need to know how our female utopia comes about.

"Deka’s blood runs gold. In a country where women have no rights, the only thing worse than being born female is to have blood that is not red. Faced with an immortal life spent hunted and tortured by both monster and man, Hemaira is her only hope. In Hemaira, the lush, green capital of the kingdom, Deka can join an elite guard made up entirely of girls like her. Can her future truly be as bright as the waters of Emeka’s Tears, the great waterfall? Or is she rushing towards an even worse fate than she left behind?"

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.
I was really looking forward to this one, the cover is awesome--and I really enjoyed it. Loved our main character, and her friends, really connected with the worldbuilding here, was really furious with men for a while irl, lol. There is a lot good here. The ending was very overwhelming and sudden for me, I had a little bit harder time connecting with it. But a really good effort here, very enjoyable book.

Original concept with a cast of strong, diverse female characters. The mythology got a bit confusing at the end, but now I just need the next one to immerse myself more in the world and figure every thing out.

This book is incredible. I loved it and have already started recommended it to so many.

This book follows Deka, a young girl who lives in a heavily patriarchal society in which women are considered lowly and severely oppressed. She discovers at the beginning of the story that she is different from the women around her, and the book follows how she finds her strength and moves forward with that knowledge (don't want to give away too much for fear of spoiling!).

This book completely sucked me in. Namina Forna is a master world builder - at random points in the book, she would provide details that came back to become significant later in an impressive way. It is so masterfully crafted, I had to check back to make sure it was her first book! The book is heavy, both in events and in the issues that it tackles - feminism, oppression, racism, rape and abuse, among others. At some points it is harsh and honest, but in a way that is much needed in today's literature. Despite the depth and weight of the plot, it is fast paced and engrossing enough that it does not feel long.

The voice of this book is one that I strongly feel the fantasy fiction world needs. The world in this book is similar to earth in some ways, and so different in others. It represents a different voice, with a protagonist that is woman and a person of color. I think this is an incredibly important book, and I'm so grateful I had the chance to read and review it!

Thank you to Random House Children’s, Delacorte Press, Namina Forna, and Netgalley for the ARC!

“The Infinite Wisdoms forbid running, as they do most things that don’t prepare girls for marriage and serving their families. According to them, girls can’t shout, drink, ride horses, go to school, learn a trade, learn to fight, move about without a male guardian. We can’t do anything that doesn’t somehow relate to having a husband and family and serving them. Elder Durkas always told us that’s because they’re trying to show us how to live happy, righteous lives.

“What if it’s meant to cage us instead?”


In Otera, if you are a girl who bleeds gold, it is a mark that you are a demon and the law requires you to be put to death. Instead, Deka is whisked away to the capital city, where she becomes a soldier in an elite force of “demon” girls, the alaki, but soon comes to find out that she is different from them, too.

I really expected to be disappointed by this book. Even when I was reading it, I was so nervous about the ending—I thought for sure something was going to go sideways and I was going to come away disappointed. And then I wasn’t! The ending was so satisfying and wonderful and I absolutely devoured this book.

To start with, I really liked the book’s themes. In an author’s note at the beginning, Forna explains that her upbringing in the highly patriarchal society of Sierra Leone, her experience in the United States, and her education about feminism all had to do with the story she wanted to write and how The Gilded Ones came to be:

“At its heart, the book is an examination of patriarchy. How does it form? What supports it? How do women survive under it? And what about people who don’t fall into the binary? Who thrives and who doesn’t?”


In The Gilded Ones, it is a male dominated world and women are required to stay home and be docile and subservient. To add to a very real-world problem is the presence of the alaki, girls descended from the Gilded Ones, demons who wreaked havoc on Otera centuries before. These women have gold blood, and superhuman abilites, but the religion of the land dictates that these women are impure and must be killed. The idea of impurity, and what women must do or not do to remain pure, is also a strong theme throughout the book. Forna also explores different issues that arise with the patriarchy—abuse, revisionist history, and corruption. At times these themes can be heavy-handed, but for a fantasy novel that explicitly wants to explore gender issues, I think it did a wonderful job.

The themes obviously had a strong impact on the characters and their character growth, from being women with a patriarchal mindset to being freed from that mindset in many ways. At the beginning of the book, our main character, Deka, feels very alone and is often hindered because of her faith and her loyalty to the system in which she has been raised. We see her learn and grow from that, but character growth and development isn’t limited to Deka. Even though this book is told in first person (personally, I usually prefer third person), we really get to know the characters that become Deka’s friends. I really loved the friendships in The Gilded Ones—you end up with a very tight-knit group that sticks together no matter what.

I do think the world building could have been improved upon. The religion and the history of Otera was done well, and I also really liked the development of the mythical creatures, like the Deathshrieks, the Equus, zerizards…They were all different from what we usually see in fantsy and contributed to the magic of the world. However, there were some things I had issues with. Firstly, the country had four distinct ethnicities in the north (white people), south (black people), east (asian people), and west (indigenous people), which on the one hand creates some interesting interactions, but I found it very unrealistic. Even our largest nations don’t have so many distinct ethnicities! The sheer size that the country would have to be to support so many different people is humongous. Even though the four different ethnicities ended up being significant at the end of the book, I had trouble with it in general. Another aspect that I was reserved about was the fact that the southern tribes had invaded and colonized the north, in a flip of what is true about our world. While I do think that this presents an interesting twist, it seemed to me like the white people of the north were still racist towards black southerners, in a way that is not very different from our world, where colonialism was both a result of and a cause of racist attitudes. This didn’t end up being explored further, and I’m curious as to whether it will come up more in the rest of the trilogy.

Jumping off that, The Gilded Ones absolutely could be a stand alone, which I guess should be expected from a debut novel, since publishers don’t know if it will sell or not. I am happy about this, because it means that even if the rest of the trilogy goes downhill, we still get an amazing first novel. It does, however, leave me curious about what will happen in the future books—there was so much growth in this book and it was so self-sufficient, I’m concerned that the future books won’t be as hard-hitting or as impactful. I’m very hopeful about future books because I ended up loving the characters and loving the world, but I’m sure that in the sequel I’ll be on edge the whole time expecting to be disappointed again!

To conclude, I loved this book. Even though it had its flaws, I had a good time froms tart to finish. There’s so much more that I could say about this book, but I’ll stop here because this review is already really long! I’m so happy that I had the opportunity to get an advanced reader’s copy, and I am super excited to read more books in this series. This was definitely a win!

This is a fantastic debut novel that fans of books like Children of Blood and Bone will definitely enjoy! It is a unique fantasy story with dynamic characters. One of the things I enjoyed the most was the pacing of the book. Dull moments were few and far between, but the characters and their relationships were still well-developed and fleshed out. A few chapters felt cut short or oddly paced, but overall the story was well-done and very enjoyable. I would definitely recommend this book to those who are fans of African-inspired fantasy and for those who are looking to diversify their reading!

Please note: I received a digital ARC of this book (via NetGalley) from its publisher in exchange for an honest and fair review.

Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow! This book absolutely blew me away! It far exceeded all of my expectations. It's beautiful female warriors destroying the patriarchy, what more do you need?!?! The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna is everything I needed and even more! Let's start with the cover...GORGEOUS! This has to be one of the single most beautiful book covers I have ever seen. The imagery immediately pulls you in and lets you know that you are going to get something special. The colors are bright and appealing and I love all of the jewelry and hair adornments. In short, solid gold magic!

The Gilded Ones is the first book in the Deathless series. We follow a group a girls who are considered outcasts in a patriarchal society because of their golden blood. This society is extremely cruel and abusive to women so trigger warning for future readers. Namina Forna takes on hard core issues like inequality, rape, violence, sexism, racism, past trauma, and xenophobia all in an epic fantasy setting. Although some of the scenarios can be hard to take at times, make no mistake this is a super empowering feminist novel.

At its heart, The Gilded Ones is a coming of age story. We follow Deka and a diverse group of female characters on their journey to find their voices and power in a world set against them. Once discovered as "unclean" Deka and the others are given the choice to die or become a soldier in the emperors army; trained to fight a monstrous enemy. But all is not as it seems. There is treachery all around and the creatures are not the only danger Deka and the other girls will face.

This world Namina Frona has created is absolutely brilliant. There are unique regions, a complex religious system, mythical creatures, and more! The kingdom of Otera feels real and totally unique. If you are a fan of Children of Blood and Bone, love epic fantasies, root for the underdog, and believe in kick ass heroines, then this book is for you! To put it shortly GO READ THIS BOOK!

Published by Delacorte Press, this gem set to release on May 26th, and is available for pre-order from all major booksellers. I give The Gilded Ones 5 out of 5 gems. I cannot wait to read more stories set in this universe.

3.25/5 stars

So I just wanna start off by saying that this is a good book. It's more so my overall feelings at the end and how much I actually enjoyed reading it. The writing and worldbuilding are definitely well done, but it's not my personal taste. The story is quite fast paced, and it throws you in after just 3 chapters. A lot starts happening at once, and it can be hard to keep up with all of it at times. However, the characters themselves make up for it. I grew to really enjoy Deka, although there were times where I felt some things were so far out of left field for her character. As mentioned before, it's definitely a good start to the series and overall plot. I personally just had different reading preferences than what this gave me.

So initially I was drawn to the book by the cover and then once I dived it, it was a great read. The plot is pretty original in my opinion and keeps a great dystopian feel throughout. Anyone who loves dystopian I would recommend this books to. Great plot, lively characters, very enjoyable read.

The Gilded Ones is an epic adventure story by Namina Forna. In Otera, women and girls are diminished in its society. Deka, a sixteen year old girl, born and raised in the Northern Province hopes for her life to be of value once she has completed the Ritual of Purity. Every sixteen year old girl undergoes the bleeding ritual to determine their purity in society. However, during Deka’s ritual a mishap ensues which sets her on a path of discovery about who she really is and her ultimate purpose in life- including special abilities.

Deka, a strong young woman in many ways, is determined to do whatever is asked of her when she is teamed up with the Lady of the Equus, a powerful society figure motivated to guide Deka through her new circumstances. However, Deka needs more answers to discover her true self. Up against so many odds, she is determined to unearth secrets of her past and create a new life for herself.

Along her journey, she finds others who are just like her, other girls who are discovering more about themselves who possess special powers that link them together through revelations hidden from them throughout history.

This book is a gradual climb with each layer of the story coming together chapter by chapter. Forna gives us a fiercely captivating and unique fantasy world. Moreover, she created one of a kind characters especially, Deka.

This book is about identity, trust, friendship and the power of women supporting one another for survival.

I REALLY enjoyed this book! It was such a great read! The pacing was really well done throughout the book and it easily maintained my attention. I tore through this book in a few sittings. If you enjoyed the hunger games, then you should pick up this book without hesitation! Another solid book in the wonderful genre of dystopian feminist novels! I loved it!