The Fates Divide (Carve the Mark Series, book 2)

By Veronica Roth

Blurb: 
Fate brought them together. Now it will divide them.

The lives of Cyra Noavek and Akos Kereseth are ruled by their fates, spoken by the oracles at their births. The fates, once determined, are inescapable.

Akos is in love with Cyra, in spite of his fate: He will die in service to Cyra’s family. And when Cyra’s father, Lazmet Noavek—a soulless tyrant, thought to be dead—reclaims the Shotet throne, Akos believes his end is closer than ever.

As Lazmet ignites a barbaric war, Cyra and Akos are desperate to stop him at any cost. For Cyra, that could mean taking the life of the man who may—or may not—be her father. For Akos, it could mean giving his own. In a stunning twist, the two will discover how fate defines their lives in ways most unexpected.

With the addition of two powerful new voices, Veronica Roth's sequel to Carve the Mark is a chorus of hope, humor, faith, and resilience.

Review: 
Like the previous book, this book was also split into multiple parts. This time it was split into 5. I like it when books have parts because reaching the next part feels like an achievement. Carve the Mark had two perspectives Akos and Cyra, this time there was 4: Cyra, Akos, Cisi and Eijeh. This was an interesting approach but needed for the story to develop, more so for Cisi than Eijeh. Eijeh was quite a unique writing style as Ryzek has become a part of him due to him injecting his memories into Eijeh in Carve the Mark. This meant that in his view he would refer himself as ‘we’ rather than I, it showed his deteriorated mind quite well. 

A problem that occured of Cisi being an added perspective it often caused me to be confused about which person I was reading just because they were first person and female with names beginning with C. Where as Akos was third person and Eijeh was two people, they weren’t easy to mix up. Eventually I would click on, due to the personalities being so different. 

With the first book, I was having a problem trying to understand the Sci-Fi and Fantasy mix up, this book was a lot clearer of a genre. It felt fully Sci-Fi so that helped the confusion and was a positive of the sequel book. 

I think my biggest issue with the series as a whole, which was made worse with The Fates Divide was how confusing the places and character names were. There was loads of place names and it was hard to keep up with which place was where. The character names were confusing on how to pronounce such as Yma. A lot of the names were short but that made it easier to mix them up. For instance Ast, Ara, Akos and probably more. I was getting confused a lot when reading this book, which caused a lower star rating.

One of the things I loved in this book was Teka’s and Cyra’s friendship. I just loved their scenes together where they would throw banter at each other. They just got on so well despite everything that has happened and despite Teka having every reason to hate Cyra. I even prefer their friendship to Cyra’s and Akos relationship in the end as it was more pure.

*SPOILERS*
There was some well thought out scenes in the book, which were made better when seeing the contrast in the characters. Cisi persuaded Isae to bomb the Sovereign ship out of hope to save civilians as it’s out of use at that time of year and it would be a more symbolic bombing. However at the same time, Cyra is telling her people to evacuate to the Sovereign ship, again trying to lower casualties, as she is unaware of Cisi’s plan. It was a great use of dramatic irony. As neither of the characters knew what the other was planning but the reader knew what was to come. The Sovereign was destroyed along with many Shotet civilians. 

One of my most favourite scene was when Cisi had met someone but couldn’t remember her name so referred to her as Cardenzia in the story. I just really appreciated this very human anecdote in the book. 

There was some predictable outcomes, it was very obvious since the introduction of the character Ast that Cisi would be stabbed by him. I also expected her to survive her fate, I was glad she lived but I do appreciate a book with big deaths and this one didn’t really have any except for Lazmet, but that was the whole plot of the book anyway. His way of dying also wasn’t too interesting and dragged. 

With Lazmet’s death, Akos planned to be the one to do it but so did Cyra. I was surprised to see that Akos was the one to achieve it, I thought it would be Cyra. Especially in the scene when she tries and Lazmet tries to mind control Cyra into killing herself but then she starts releasing her gift. I think if she succeeded then that would have been a more interesting way for him to die.

Another predictable scene was that Akos and Cyra were swapped as babies. I just kind of expected that to be the explanation. I guess something like that shouldn’t be too unexpected as then it would seem too far fetched, so it did seem fitting to an extent. 

Despite loving Akos in the first book, my opinion of him changed in this one. First he betrays Jorek, his best friend and lets him be killed for helping him. I know it was to help perform his plan but it was wrong and Akos in the first book wouldn’t have done it. Then he sits still as Cyra is on the verge of death against Lazmet, he was going to let her die. Despite the book cover saying ‘He’d die for her. She’d kill for him.’ For some reason in the end Cyra still took him back but I think he isn’t worth it in the end. 

Overall, I did like it but not as much as the first book. The Fates Divide was slower paced and just generally didn’t have as good as a story as Carve the Mark. It did have some good scenes and I did enjoy some of it but like I suspected it, I think I’d prefer it as one book, without the Lazmet coming back part. 

Rating: 3 runes out of 5 

written by Lauren