Daughter of the Burning City

Imagine a mix of "Stalking Jack the Ripper" and "Caraval", added with an unusual protagonist and exciting twists and turns - once you could even deduce yourself by close reading. The beginning was slow, but the second half was read in one day!

Loved reading this one! It felt so magical and unique.

I really loved the whole atmosphere with the setting of the Gomorrah Festival, which is a city but also kind of a circus and a carnival, described in a dark and gothic way. The whole idea of people living together, sleeping during day-time, being awake at night, of danger seemingly waiting everywhere, of grotesque attractions and magic and of being a family - I loved it. So much. I also liked the casual diversity - the protagonist Sorina is bi, falling in love with an asexual love interest. I am just unsure about the depiction of asexuality. While Sorinas bisexuality or other occurences of same-sex relations are never questioned and treated as normal (which I liked!), asexuality is regarded as freakish and abnormal and there are several acephobic comments. On the one hand, I would have wished for it to be treated as normal as the other orientations. On the other hand, this is a book on how Sorina and her family are treated as freaks in a city that is seen as freakish in the outside world, and having the parallels of asexuality being seen as invalide in parts the queer community (that is then again invalidated in some parts of the allocisheteronormative world) can be seen as an interesting take. Not sure whether it was intentional but that offeres an interesting perspective. I really loved the book at the beginning but became less intrigued until the end, not because I didn't like the story but rather because it became a bit predictable which is probably less the book's fault and more mine for reading to much books in this genre and becoming too accoustomed with typical plot lines. It was still a fun read with an unusual setting and I practically inhaled it so defintely worth it.