The Fates Divide is Veronica Roth’s sequel to Carve the Mark, which I reviewed last year. I loved this entire duology. Some people anxiously await the releases of new movies… other people (that would be me) anxiously await the releases of new books, counting the days until they arrive in the mail. I pre-ordered this book months in advance and couldn’t wait until it was released. I currently work as a self checkout host at Walmart — right before this book came out, there was a sign saying how many days until Easter, and I would add nine days every time I looked at the sign and would excitedly think to myself “that’s how many days until The Fates Divide comes out”. I’m currently anxiously awaiting the release of Marie Lu’s Wildcard on September 18th (and her scheduled 2019 release Kingdom of Back) and Renée Ahdieh’s Smoke in the Sun on my daughter’s birthday (June 5th), but I digress.
I had to go to my kids’ homeschool coop in the morning, but as soon as I got home, I went straight to the mailbox (oh, and I was tracking the package’s progress to my mailbox for days before its arrival), got my book out, and started reading. Aside from having to take my daughter to American Heritage Girls that evening, I didn’t stop reading that evening until I was finished. I love that I don’t have to work on Tuesdays, because that’s when all the new books come out :-).
If you haven’t read Carve the Mark yet, don’t read on if you don’t want spoilers.
The Fates Divide follows Akos and Cyra as they fly off into the stars after they capture Eijeh and Ryzek. Lazmet, Cyra and Ryzek’s father, was recently revealed to be alive, and they will have to put a stop to him; after all, Ryzek learned to be the cruel person that he was because of his father. It is written in four POV’s: those of Akos, Cyra, Eijah, and Cisi.
Before I started reading this book, I was a little wary of how this duology was going to end, especially since the book has the tagline He’d die for her. She’d kill for him. I absolutely hate chapter 50 of Allegiant (and no, We Can Be Mended did not fix things for me), but I still love the Divergent series because the rest of the story is so good. Before this book’s release date, I reread Carve the Mark 3 times (twice in English and once in Spanish) and mused over the fates that these characters have. Is there any possible way for this story to turn out well? I thought to myself.
Fortunately, I’m very happy to say that this story did have a satisfying ending and did not leave me crying at 4 AM as I crawled into bed as Allegiant did. There are a couple of twists in this book (one I kind of guessed could be a possibility of after I finished Carve the Mark, the other one that happens in chapter 2, surprised the heck out of me). I was very happy with the direction that this book went in and I’m sure that most readers will too.
Although I loved this book overall, I didn’t really love the storyline with Cisi as much as I loved the storyline with Akos and Cyra. Cisi’s POV chapters were an interesting side story, and they did contribute to the overall progression of the story, but I didn’t love her character as much as I love the characters of Akos and Cyra. I didn’t really find Eijah’s chapters to be detracting.
The Fates Divide is definitely written for the older side of the YA audience. I recently read The Weight of Feathers, and one of the readers commented about how he was disturbed by the scene where one of the characters was swimming topless in front of a boy that she liked because her bikini that she normally wore with her mermaid costume had been destroyed. If that sort of scene disturbs you, then you should probably seek out Middle Grade books and avoid The Fates Divide for now. Akos and Cyra do quite a bit more than kissing in this book, and some of the scenes are fairly descriptive. I love their relationship, but it’s also part of what makes this book suitable for an older YA audience.
This is the kind of book that leaves me thinking about the characters after reading the book, and is one that I plan on rereading. It is the kind of book that I might write fanfiction about (I actually did write a short fanfiction scene called Five Seasons Later the morning after I read the book; it contains spoilers for The Fates Divide, so don’t read it if you have not read the book yet). I give this book a rating of 5/5 stars.