Markless

5 / 5 stars

Aila aus Zürich am 29.05.2025
Bewertungsnummer: 2502264
Bewertet: Buch (Gebundene Ausgabe)

This was absolutely wonderful! The story had me hooked early on, and I genuinely had trouble putting this book down. This is a sapphic enemies-to-lovers romance, which is not usually my thing, but this book just set up everything right and didn't move too fast. I quickly fell in love with Ruti and Kimya, and eventually also with Dekala and Orrin. I think the story really handles the dynamics between these four characters well, clearly establishing them at the beginning and then slowly fleshing them out. The last fourth of the book was the weakest, in my opinion, as it started to feel a bit repetitive, with the same conversation between Ruti and Dekala happening over and over again, without much new information being introduced. It also introduced an element of secrecy, as Ruti was privy to information she'd discussed with Dekala, but did not divulge it to the reader - ultimately leaving the section to feel somewhat disjointed. These issues did have me considering giving this book only 4.5 stars, but ultimately the rest of the story had so enamoured me that I could not bear rating it anything but 5 stars.

review

Bewertung am 25.06.2024
Bewertungsnummer: 2230674
Bewertet: Buch (Gebundene Ausgabe)

I received an ARC by NetGalley from the audio book in exchange for an honest review. What intrigued me was definitely the cover because it’s absolutely stunning and the description of the book sounds very interesting as well. Based on the description, I expected a fight against oppression and ultimately a society where the Markless and the Marked are worth the same, and the people realize that the Markless aren’t worth any less. But sadly, that was not the case. Ruti, our Markless protagonist, doesn’t stand up for herself or for her people and just accepts how society and the heir treat her and the other Markless. I got the feeling she thought she was better than “real” Markless, because she could sing to the spirits and do song magic, instead of being unable to do any magic at all. The Markless in the kingdom are being abandoned at birth and thrown into the slums with no food or safety. There are orphanages, but there aren’t any adults in them to take care of the children or to give them food so I don’t really know why they’re even there and it is said that many children don’t even live in these orphanages and just live on the street and die really really young. In the neighboring kingdom, the Markless are being sold as slaves, and those who aren’t sold as slaves formed an underground society where they can live in “peace”. Instead of trying to reunite these separate societies, everybody just accepts that there are two societies within the kingdom, and in our main kingdom, the slums just keep existing. The “great solution” at the end is to send the Markless children from the slums into the neighboring kingdom to live in their society instead of accepting them into society. The oppression is seen as cultural, instead of systemically, and we are just to believe that the princess, then queen, couldn’t make laws in order to prevent parents to get rid of their children at birth or laws to make the Markless treat the Markless as equals. Nobody ever apologized for treating Ruti and the Markless like dirt or show any remorse or take any responsibility for their actions. In the end, Ruti is allowed to live amongst them, but the rest of the Markless are still seen as worthless. The “love story” between Ruti and the heir was underwhelming at worst and laughable at best. I didn’t feel any chemistry between these characters. I believe that they were attracted to each other, but they were definitely not in love and the heir says all the time that she can’t fall in love or won’t fall in love and just uses Ruti to let off some steam. The plot twist at the end was not very convincing, because the narrator is the first person protagonist lying to us in her thoughts, which doesn’t work. The magic system was not well explained (who are the spirits? What exactly are witches? The difference between the Marks?) and there wasn’t strong world building. At the end, there is no real character growth, and we are to accept that the main characters are good people, even though they do objectively bad things and never take any responsibility. They don’t want to change the system that benefits them, even though it keeps lots of people oppressed, but don’t recognize that themselves and just say it is what it is.