A review by felinity
Children of Icarus by Caighlan Smith

3.0

Really mixed feelings about this one. The writing itself was good, the concept new, and the characters well-drawn, but there were a few things that just annoyed me.

The main character was so passive she was infuriating. Over and over there were times where she'd be thinking about saying or doing something but never actually got around to it. She just can't do *anything*, and can't even try.

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And her name was never actually revealed, which was somewhat interesting (but distracted me because I kept thinking there was going to be a reason for it, or maybe because it was an experiment like Lock In)

.

Some events happened so quickly I almost missed them and had to flip back, but then we'd spend forever agonising with the narrator.

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Even the ending was somewhat ambiguous - I can't figure out whether it's a standalone or whether there's supposed to be a sequel later. If you ever watched the movie Cube, you'll understand what I mean. (And also the slight icky feeling, which was one reason I never continued with the Maze Runner series.)

It feels inspired by [b:The Hunger Games|2767052|The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)|Suzanne Collins|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1447303603s/2767052.jpg|2792775] and [b:Maze Runner|6186357|The Maze Runner (Maze Runner, #1)|James Dashner|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1375596592s/6186357.jpg|6366642], with the darkness of both, though doesn't quite have the depth of either. But it's a decent debut by a young author. The "first person present-tense" narration for YA is starting to get old, but works here. Even though I really wanted to shake the main character at times, I still empathized with her and followed her train of thought, and the innovative influx of Greek mythology kept my interest.

With the exception of the main character, the others were a good mixture

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, not falling into the easy "good guys/bad guys" camp, and she avoided the love triangle trope. I was surprised by Collin's cruelty and that *no-one* tried to put a stop to it. I know he was the leader, but there were others who seemed strong enough to say "That's enough". I also felt that surely the Executioner could have communicated with writing, though maybe the lack of words actually helped the unnamed main character to get a grip

. The interactions between the characters, with their various preferences and foibles, kept them from being stereotypes.

Don't read if you don't like gore, or psychological torture, or if you only want the bad guys to die. (Sorry, but if you haven't read The Hunger Games or Maze Runner, that's important for you to know.)

Disclaimer: I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.