Daughter of the Burning City by Amanda Foody (2017)

Everything is fine. Okay, everything's not fine but it’s as good as it’s going to get for Sorina and her family of illusions while living in Gomorrah without edging too close to danger. Every night they put on their act, some party, and then they do it all over again the next night. Sure, Sorina doesn’t have any eyes, Tree is made of bark, and Crown is made of fingernails (just to name a few) but everything moves smoothly. Until it doesn’t. All of a sudden, one of them is found murdered on their own stage. Then, one by one, they all start to meet a fate too dark to mention. Sorina needs to figure out how her illusions who can’t die are dying, and quickly, because the bodies are starting to pile up.

Woah guys. This book is amazing. Like, out of the ball park. If we’re going for originality, which is sort of hard to find in the YA scene these days, Daughter of the Burning City wins the blue ribbon. This may not just be my favorite book of 2017 but one of my favorite books ever. I have no idea how Amanda Foody pulled this off, especially because it’s her debut, but she should keep doing whatever she’s doing.

At the start of this book I did not feel the same way as I do now. The world building in Daughter of the Burning City is spectacular- there is an established political climate, religious spectrum, and a set of societal rules but right at the beginning it was a lot to take in. There are some terms that go together like Up-Mountains/Down-Mountains and Uphill/Downhill that got confusing at the beginning. There is also a grand cast of characters that are mostly introduced within the first couple of pages which makes for a lot to take in.

I promise you, if you get past the first little bit you’ll find the characters are such a joy. First of all, there’s Sorina, our main character. Sorina is exactly her age: sixteen (side note: where do all these sixteen year olds come from that get all these great adventures?). A lot of the time, Sorina does take on an adult role but because of her age she also is full of wonderment and interest in everything, including her love interest, Luca. Luca is equally as charming as Sorina. In my mind, I imagined him as Dylan Sprouse. He also has a really unique take on relationships as he doesn’t seem very interested in anything sexual.

Of course, I can’t go on without mentioning Sorina’s illusions. There’s Nicoleta, Tree, Gil, Crown, Unu and Du, Venera, Hawk, and Blister. Like I said, at first they were hard to tell apart but by the end it’s obvious that they all have very distinct and different personalities. My personal favorite was Gil due to both his love of books and his intelligence in different situations. I also really liked Nicoleta, who was a type of mother for the group. She also showed that no matter what abilities, everyone is important in order for everything to work smoothly.

The one, slight thing that didn’t work out for me was the secret killer. Throughout the whole book, the reader is working up to the point to find out who is murdering all the illusions. However, about two thirds of the way through, I successfully figured out who the killer was.

The best part of Daughter of the Burning City was the overall feeling and mood of the book. Constantly, I was filled with wonderment and amazement of the world Sorina lived in. It was truly magical and was a book I didn’t want to end. Truly, even though a sequel isn’t in the works I could go for one. Now I’m off to watch “American Horror Story: Freak Show” because I need to be in a wonderful Freak Show once again.
5 Stars