Wir begleiten in diesem ersten Teil Deka, eine junge Frau von 15 Jahren, die in Ihrem Dorf in den nördlichen Provinzen Oteras sowohl als Frau, als auch als "Südländische" am Rande der Gesellschaft lebt. Als sie dem Ritual unterzogen wird, das alle 16 Jährigen durchlaufen müssen, gedchieht das undenkbare - sie ist eine Unreine. Das offenbart ihr ein Schicksal, das zunächst als schlecht erscheint, sich aber bald als eine lang ersehnte Bestimmun herausstellt. Das Setting sowie die Charaktere haben mich überzeugt. Auch wenn die Protagonistin manchmal etwas naiv wirkt, es doch einige redundante Passagen gibt und sich die Geschichte nach langsamer Entfaltung auf den letzten Seiten etwas gar schnell entwickelt, so hat sie mich dennoch für sich eingenommen.

Ich bin relativ schwer in die Story reingekommen. Deka kam mir sehr lange vor, wie ein kleines eingeschüchtert Mädchen und gleichzeitig als wäre sie stark & selbstbewusst. Ich weiß leider nicht, wie ich es anders beschreiben kann. Im Laufe der Story hat sie sich auf jeden Fall verändert und doch hat man gemerkt, dass sie in mancher Hinsicht noch genauso ist, wie zu Anfang des Buches, ziemlich naiv. Funny, das erinnert mich irgendwie an mich 😅😂 Die Story an sich fand ich dann sehr angenehm gelesen, da nicht jedes kleine Fitzelchen beschrieben wurde und gut eingebaute Zeitsprünge dabei waren. Ich fand die spannenden Stelle auch sehr cool und es war eine gute Abwechslung zu den anderen Stellen. Es wurde auch, obviously, eine Liebe mit eingebaut. Da bin ich mir jedoch noch unsicher, wie ich die fand. Denn irgendwie war die nicht so im Vordergrund, was ich jetzt nicht unbedingt als negativ bewerten würde. Jedoch war es jetzt nicht so, dass ich das Gefühl hatte, dass sie unbedingt zusammengehören. Dazu wurde die Beziehung der beiden einfach zu wenig beschrieben. Nichtsdestotrotz hatte ich das Gefühl, dass die Story eigentlich schon ein gutes Ende gefunden hat. Mal sehen, was jetzt im zweiten Teil noch passiert, dass die Story fortgesetzt werden musste. 😊

It pretty much gave comprehensive insights into patriarchal oppression and misogyny while all of these topics were covered and veiled by a high-fantasy story focusing on Deka, who embarks on a mission to kill off deathshrieks in order to earn her ‘purity’. I really liked the plot (especially the plot-twist, I was flabbergasted!!) as well as the true meaning between the lines and on top of that I feel like the book has ended on the decent note that I had already anticipated, making me wonder, whether I would even like to pick up the sequel. To round it off, the only thing that lacked in depth for me personally was the relationship between Deka and Keita. Somehow, their feelings for each other developed out of nowhere and began to unravel way to fast-paced, making it difficult for me to ship them.

Omg this book! Where do I even begin to review this book?? This is hands down one of my favorite reads of the year and I CANNOT wait for the sequel. Not necessarily because, for once, this book had a huge and paining cliffhanger at the end which had me wishing for a time machine to fast forward to the sequel's release date, no. But more because I want to know how the story continues in this fantastic world with these beloved characters which made their way into my heart! The Gilded Ones is an excellent debut! You know, when sometimes you read a book and you can tell a bit it is a debut novel because the writing seems a bit bumpy or the characters seem flat? Well, this is definitely NOT the case here! While reading this book, I didn't even notice it is a debut at all. When I finished it, I literally thought "wow, what a powerful debut. I'm so impressed!". Besides the unique storyline I absolutely adored each character which had been reflected by me laughing and crying with them haha. I also enjoyed the fact that Deka's, our main character, personal and magical progression had the spotlight over the romance. Yes, there was a subtle romance but not so much that it would hurt the story or pace of the book. It was implemented perfectly. If you love a diverse cast of characters, a unique ya fantasy story and good writing style, I definitely recommend this book to you!

„The Gilded Ones“ by Namina Forna 2.5⭐️ Let me start with what I actually enjoyed about this book… The writing itself is very easy to read and allowed me to flow through the book as if no time had passed while I flipped the pages. This was probably the best part of the book, because the author managed to make me forget that it is written in present tense and that usually throws me off, but not here. Also, I thought the first third of the book was very well done. I like the set up with the purity ritual, even though it was completely obvious that Deka would fail, but that didn’t bother me as much. The religious indoctrination and oppression of women give Deka an incredibly interesting starting point for the story, so no critique there. Then there are the deathshrieks, murderous monsters, predators which threaten to eradicate the empire. Also a nice, yet flawed first attempt at an adversary. Yet, I have a lot of issues with this book. Beginning with some language aspects that range from annoying to weak world building. The use of Latin and German words (yes didn‘t happen often, but well) was quite annoying and there was also a phrase, that just kept coming back up. „We who are dead salute you“ is the English translation of „Morituri te salutant“ which was famously spoken by gladiators in Roman arenas before the fighting started and they might most likely die either in battle for the amusement of the People or afterwards succumb to their injuries. In the context of this book, speaking this sentence does not make any sense to me, since they literally cannot die 99% of the time (and considering what happens in the end, not even this 1% seems to work, if Deka commands against it). Also, why would a standing army, that is supposed to successfully defend the country and not die trying, speak these words? I don’t get it. An aspect I really missed in this book was on page character development. It would have been very interesting to read about how Deka deconstructs her beliefs over the course of time, but instead she‘s seemingly instantly cured and badasses her way through training. She switches from a frightened and beaten girl to a fearsome aggressive warrior and peptalks all the other girls into dumping all their learned behaviour within moments of the book. I would have loved to just see them struggle more with this, since we got told in the beginning, that women are being oppressed for ages. Indoctrination like this probably takes a long time to deconstruct. I would have loved to see that happen. Additionally, most side characters lacked any sort of personality. Most of them were only there to serve Deka, Britta first and foremost. Also, the male part of their team didn’t really play any sort of role at all. Why they were needed eludes me (apart from the romance of course) They serve no other means than to show us, how much more awesome the girls are, despite that was more than obvious in the first place. The deathshrieks also simply served their purpose of being the first antagonist and ugly monsters, that show up for shock value when ever the author seems to have written herself into a corner. Yet, how they are described already gives us a hint, as to what they actually are. (Having spikes on their backs is usually an indicator for a prey animal.) Then I generally have a problem with overpowered characters and making them turn out to be Anakin Skywalker in a woman’s body doesn’t help much. She is just one more main character who has extra special powers, that don’t seem to be flawed or inconveniencing. That simply isn’t my thing. Yet, one of her character flaws is, that she’s not the brightest when it comes to remembering clues and putting them together… It was very painful to watch her find more and more evidence, yet always forgetting about it and not putting 1 and 1 together up until the very last part of the book. And now the worldbuilding issues. I just couldn’t wrap my head around the golden blood, that somehow actually consists of enough gold, to make armour out of it… I don’t understand the physics behind this. How hot and heavy must these girls be, when their blood consists of liquid gold? Or are those nano particles, but then the colour would be off… And, why make an armour out of such a weak and heavy metal? I don’t quite get the practicality other than shielding their ears, but golden earplugs would have sufficed there. Also, categorising people by the direction they come from (Easterners, Westerners, and so on) instead giving their home regions actual names just doesn’t do it for me. In an organically grown world, there will be names for regions, also after those regions are joined together in a larger kingdom. I love intricately built worlds with depth and history to them, where you see all the effort a person put in to flesh it out. This sometimes wasn’t the case here unfortunately. Another aspect also made me heavily doubt the purpose of this Alaki army. There are different training centers and the Alaki are trained differently in each one, so they also have a very large range of skill level, from barely able to hold a weapon to actually being trained to be one. Why not train them the same way? They can’t die most times and would therefore give you a massive advantage over any other troops. Why waste this potential? Yet, this army also doesn’t have any scouts to see if they are being attacked, but why bother? Some smaller issues were, that I would have loved to have an actual name for White Hands earlier, because it always sounded too suspicious that she went with this one. I would have loved to see all „northerners“ having an accent, not only Britta. And I would have loved to get more personality out of the side characters and teachers. So all in all, I can‘t say, I didn’t like it at all, but the further I got in the book, the more annoyed and frustrated I became and I don’t know whether I will read part two and three of the series… I still have to decide that.

This book touched something deep inside me! An emotional story about finding your chosen family and not the one you were born into. About fantastical beasts, that aren't beasts at all. Empowering! A fight for freedom, for equality, for being seen. And a fight against patriarchy. Loved this book and would definitely recommend giving it a try. It's a bit complicated the first 100 pages or so, but once you dive into the world you will not want to stop!

Omg this book! Where do I even begin to review this book?? This is hands down one of my favorite reads of the year and I CANNOT wait for the sequel. Not necessarily because, for once, this book had a huge and paining cliffhanger at the end which had me wishing for a time machine to fast forward to the sequel's release date, no. But more because I want to know how the story continues in this fantastic world with these beloved characters which made their way into my heart! The Gilded Ones is an excellent debut! You know, when sometimes you read a book and you can tell a bit it is a debut novel because the writing seems a bit bumpy or the characters seem flat? Well, this is definitely NOT the case here! While reading this book, I didn't even notice it is a debut at all. When I finished it, I literally thought "wow, what a powerful debut. I'm so impressed!". Besides the unique storyline I absolutely adored each character which had been reflected by me laughing and crying with them haha. I also enjoyed the fact that Deka's, our main character, personal and magical progression had the spotlight over the romance. Yes, there was a subtle romance but not so much that it would hurt the story or pace of the book. It was implemented perfectly. If you love a diverse cast of characters, a unique ya fantasy story and good writing style, I definitely recommend this book to you!

Thanks to Fairyloot, I was able to read this book very early and I am so in love with its cover! The Gilded Ones is about Deka, a girl living in a society that oppresses women. She has to undergo a ritual when she's 15 years old, to prove her purity by the color of her blood. Deka wants to be accepted into her community and finally take her place which has been denied before, because of her mother's heritage. However, it turns out that Deka has golden blood, which means she is demonic and has to be held captive and killed as often as is necessary. Before her new magic powers give out, though, she gains the opportunity to change her fate by enlisting in the army. The premise itself is already full of promise! It was so so much fun to read about girls who can kick ass and use their fighting prowess to stand up to inequality. I also like Deka a lot. She does make questionable choices that aren't always smart for the sake of furthering the plot, but I can forgive those. The way she overthinks everything (not unlike me, haha) makes her very approachable. I loved the ending, although, looking at it objectively, it did feel a bit too easy. There could have been more twists and turns, especially since this isn't a standalone. Still, the suspense is held until the very end. The world is interesting and aesthetically pleasing. And while there is a love story, which I usually dislike, it is never in higher regard than the friendship between Deka and her fellow Alaki, which I absolutely love. I can only recommend this stunning fantasy novel!

Tabbed - 22 times I really love this book! I have now read it twice - rereading it ahead of the release of the sequel later this week, which I am super excited for. I can't choose a favourite part of this book - the first thing that comes to mind is the characters but when I think about it more I can't choose any part. I really do love the characters, and slight element of romance there is in this book. Deka is a great female lead, Britta is super loyal and someone I would love to be friends with, Keita is a great romantic interest and I just love him! He's so perfect for Deka, and I want someone like him! and I just love all of Deka's gang. I really love this world as well. I wouldn't survive in it but I love it and the magic really intrigues me. To be fair, I don't know if I'd call it magic but I don't have a better name for it. I really love the world and I don't know why, it is just somewhere I want to read about. Something I loved about the magic, was the creatures - I am super interested in them and hope they are something we learn more about in the second book. There were so many other parts of the world and magic (but it's not really that), that I loved and need to hear more about. I think that's everything I want to talk about but I'm not sure. Something important to mention is The Gilded Ones has quite a few trigger warnings including graphic violence, torture, child abuse and sexual assault, among others - so I would recommend looking those up before reading.

There are two things I think this book does really well: natural worldbuilding and its influence on the protagonist. This is a world of unspeakable cruelties against women and especially the "unpure" ones, which, whenever described, left a huge impression, however since we learn about this world through Deka's eyes, a lot of the discrimination is conveyed as normal and the reader can experience how much of the propaganda she has internalized. Piece by piece, she is able to break out of these believes over the course of the book by gaining selfrespect and being able to want things for herself. The synopsis always sounded pretty hamfisted to me, but I think it was really well handled. While the novel was filled with good moments and had an interesting, though typical YA plot, I sometimes felt like it was missing the actual meat of the story. There was a bit too much in too little time, which was fine for the most part but manifested as a glaring issue at the rushed and not satisfying ending.

I’m not really sure how to feel about this. On one hand, I liked the worldbuilding well enough. Besides, women empowering women is always a plus. And I liked how the plot revealed the truth about the MC step by step. Then again, the Chosen One trope was too much for my taste. Every chapter I thought “Ok, which new power will we discover now?”. Another point: The romance. I didn’t feel it at all (and would’ve rooted for a sapphic romance since it would’ve suited the story much better). So, all in all this was just a meh read.