The Never Tilting World by Rin Chupeco

The Never Tilting World by Rin Chupeco
Published by HarperTeen
Published on 15 October 2019
Genres: Fantasy & Magic, Young Adult
Pages: 496
Format: eARC
Source: Edelweiss
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RRP: $34.99

Frozen meets Mad Max in this epic teen fantasy duology bursting with star-crossed romance, immortal heroines, and elemental magic, perfect for fans of Furyborn.

Generations of twin goddesses have long ruled Aeon. But seventeen years ago, one sister’s betrayal defied an ancient prophecy and split their world in two. The planet ceased to spin, and a Great Abyss now divides two realms: one cloaked in perpetual night, the other scorched by an unrelenting sun.

While one sister rules Aranth—a frozen city surrounded by a storm-wracked sea —her twin inhabits the sand-locked Golden City. Each goddess has raised a daughter, and each keeps her own secrets about her sister’s betrayal.

But when shadowy forces begin to call their daughters, Odessa and Haidee, back to the site of the Breaking, the two young goddesses —along with a powerful healer from Aranth, and a mouthy desert scavenger —set out on separate journeys across treacherous wastelands, desperate to heal their broken world. No matter the sacrifice it demands.

I received a copy of this book from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

I absolutely adored The Bone Witch trilogy by Rin Chupeco. Such incredible world-building. Such well-rounded, dynamic characters. Such complicated motivations.

I’m sorry to say that The Never Tilting World pales somewhat in comparison.

I loved the world-building. I did find it remarkably similar to Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake, in that each generation a goddess bears twins (triplets in Blake’s book), one of whom will eventually take over and rule their world, and I just kind of assumed it meant that one will die (or have to be murdered by the other) and I was kind of surprised that it took the characters so long to figure this out… but for most of the book the twins didn’t know the other existed. If think it was the similarity to Three Dark Crowns that just made me go, yeah of course it has to happen.

BUT WHAT IF IT DOESN’T? *plot twist*

Look, the world-building was pretty cool. This was billed as Mad Max meets Frozen (or, as Rin said, more like Mad Max meets Avatar: The Last Airbender) and I am SO THERE so those comparisons.

YES I KNOW THAT IS KORRA NOT AANG.

Sadly I was not as enchanted by this tale as I wanted to be, and I think it comes down to one very simple reason: there were four points of view that sounded indistinguishable.

I found the book somewhat difficult to get in to, notably because there were 4 points of view, the narrative voices didn’t differ enough for me to really identify who was narrating and two of the characters – identical twin goddesses with colour-changing rainbow hair – why? No idea – were so similar I found it difficult to differentiate who was whom.

They even had similar plots: both embarked on road trips to try to save their world – and they each had a point of view sidekick who were fierce warriors, that they both squabbled with but secretly lusted after. Overall it was difficult to care about the characters with so much POV shifting and similarities between plots and characters.

Apart from the frustrating moments when I wasn’t sure who was narrating, I did largely enjoy the book, but for some reason I was under the impression that it was a stand-alone, so I was actually a little disappointed to find it has another installment. As for me, I’m going to pretend that it ended right here, and all those unanswered questions can just fly away in the wind.

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