Great start underwhelming continuation.

1,5

I recieved this ARC from Netgalley and this is my honest review.

Clio is the youngest daughter of the Oracle of Sheehan. Sheehan is a dying city who is as good as conquered by the Morek empire. But its not what is on her and her older sisters mind as the book opens Ali,the sister closest in age to Clio is to become one of her mothers Vessels. emissaries of the Oracle who carry out her orders.

Clio has seen how changed and cold her other sisters have become and she knows she is next and as she is the daughter of the oracle she is never allowed to marry and have children of her own. Nothing can be changed no matter how she rails at her distant mother.
But its too late and Ali accepts her destiny and draws away from her sister.Distraught over losing her only confidante she goes to find her old childhood friend Derik the son of the ruler of the city who she has not seen in several years.

Her mother and sisters have been betrayed by Mannix a foreigner who has killed the king of Sheehan and pointed the blame at the Oracle. That night her mother and sisters are killed and Clio inherits the Sight.
Her black hair turns white and she know her mothers power werebefore she was skeptical about her mothers so called powers-now she knows just how real they are.
She decides to go to Morek to try and save her sister but is too late and becomes trapped as one of the slaves that are to be sacrificed
Riece is the young Commander who takes an interest in Clio but even if she starts to trust him she can never reveal that she is an Oracle because the reason Morek has no more Oracles is because she betrayed the city and caused the death of Rieces mother.

Then it became a love story and characters started saying things like"Join the club" and the plot lost its momentum and general epicness in the making.

I did like Clio ...at least the Clio of the first chapters a bit rebellious but likeable nevertheless but after she got to the city instead of a young woman with a glorious but heavy gift and purpose she is quickly reduced to a silly girl with a crush on a boy,a boy who while he didnt directly enslave her was her jailer. Oh but trust me he hates his job but hey at least he tries to treat the girls decently before they are taken away and killed.

This is why I prefer a honest villain as opposed to a hypocritical hero. -__-

Then of course there is the budding love triangle with Riece and Derik ,there is even a scene where the antagonist has the two guys captive and force Clio to decide between them.

Goodness gracious.Why would he even care? Not to mention that the antagonist and Clio had more chemistry than any of the other two.
When will authors abandon the whole love triangle plot Lots of books that could have been decent and the ones that knows how to write a love triangle believable are very far in between.
This book had a great plot and female protagonist but it took a trip down a cliff.
( )

I have very mixed feelings about this book. Despite the buildup of reading the synopsis, the beginning dragged for me: it's clear Clio, the child-to-be-oracle, hates her mother and lives in a very sterile environment of a temple without love. But this beginning somehow did not make me care deeply about her and her future. I think this is what killed the rest of the book for me...somehow I didn't care deeply what happened to her.

She experiences lots of conflict, but you know she will get out of the mess and sure enough she does...I guess it felt too prescriptive and predictable. I felt like we see her in various situations but they did not flow together. They just felt like a character being tested and I just didn't care...

Overall, the writing was pretty good, but I'd say the story arc needs a bit of work. For a debut novel, this was a good attempt and I know the author will improve with time. ( )

Sigue hacia abajo para encontrar la reseña en español.

I got this review copy from NetGalley.


The first thing that got me interested in this book was the cover, which is beautiful. Then, I read the synopsis and got very curious. It's a book that has oracles, told from the point of view of an oracle. So far, all the stories with oracles that I had read had the oracles as secondary characters. They may have played a key role in some part of the story, but they had never been the main characters. In this story, we see the oracle's life and her frustration about the lack of context of her visions. She is shown the what, but she doesn't know the when or the why.

Something that I liked a lot about Sacrificed is that the love triangle works and doesn't feel forced. Clio hasn't grown up surrounded by men, as the only people who participate in the oracle cult are women. She had one male childhood friend, who she hasn’t seen in several years. After seeing him again, both realise that they have grown up and that their relationship may have shifted from friendship to at least physical attraction. Then she meets another young man, who she does fall in love with. As this doesn't happen the moment she meets him -she only finds him interesting at first- and her confusion about her feelings is explained, the whole situation is much more natural than in many other YA novels.

There's one thing that I hope to see explained in further novels and that's the world's religion. The deities are always mentioned in plural, so I'm guessing that there's more than one god, but beyond this, there's not much information about them or the people's faith. There aren't even many things that point to their existence, other than the oracles' visions and a few things that happen in the oracle's temple. I'm keeping this intentionally vague to avoid giving spoilers, as it happens at the end of the book, but there's nothing that actually points to an intervention by a higher power. In fact, what happens can be considered just magic. Also, I didn't really understand what the vessels were for. Clio doesn't have any and she manages to live without them, so they don't seem to be necessary. This lack of explanations make sense in the context of the story, as Clio has rejected everything related to the oracle and doesn't want anything to do with it, until the rest of her family is killed and she's the one who inherits the powers of the oracle. Still, I'm very curious about this.

Even though it's the first part of a series, this story can be read as a stand-alone. There are some clues about how it will continue, but the main adventure is over when you reach the last page of this book and I liked that. I don't mind cliff-hangers, but I don't want to wait a lot to see them resolved.

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Lo primero que me interesó de este libro fue la portada, que es muy bonita. Luego leí la sinopsis y me entró mucha curiosidad. Es un libro que trata de oráculos, narrado desde el punto de vista de un oráculo. Hasta ahora, todas las historias con oráculos que había leído, tenían a los oráculos como personajes secundarios. Puede que tuvieran un papel clave en alguna parte de la historia, pero nunca habían sido los protagonistas. En esta historia vemos la vida del oráculo y su frustración ante la falta de contexto de sus visiones. Sabe el qué, pero no el cuándo o el por qué.

Algo que me gustó mucho de Sacrificed es que el triángulo amoroso no parece forzado. Clio no ha crecido rodeada de hombres, ya que las únicas personas que participan en el culto del oráculo son mujeres. Sólo tuvo un único amigo chico, al que no ha visto desde hace varios años. Al verlo de nuevo, ambos se dan cuenta de que han crecido y de que su relación ha cambiado de amistad a al menos atracción física. Luego conoce a otro joven del que se enamora. Dado que esto no ocurre en el mismo momento en el que lo conoce -al principio sólo lo encuentra interesante- y que se explica su confusión sobre sus sentimientos, la situación es mucho más natural que en muchas otras novelas juveniles.

Hay algo que espero que se explique en las siguientes novelas y es la religión del mundo. Los dioses siempre se mencionan en plural, así que supongo que hay más de un dios, pero aparte de eso no hay mucha información sobre ellos o la fe de la gente. Ni siquiera hay muchas cosas que sugieran su existencia, salvo las visiones de los oráculos y algunas cosas que ocurren en el templo del oráculo. Estoy dejando esto impreciso a propósito para evitar spoilers, ya que ocurre al final del libro, pero no hay nada que realmente apunte a una intervención de un poder superior. De hecho, lo que ocurre se puede considerar simplemente magia. Además, no terminé de entender para qué servían los recipientes. Clio no tiene ninguno y consigue vivir sin ellos, así que no parece que sean necesarios. Esta falta de explicaciones tiene sentido en el contexto de la historia, porque Clio ha dado la espalda a todo lo relacionado con el oráculo y no quiere tener nada que ver con ello hasta que asesinan al resto de su familia y ella es la que hereda los poderes del oráculo. Aún así, tengo mucha curiosidad.

Aunque es la primera parte de una serie, esta historia se puede leer como autoconclusiva. Hay alguna pista de cómo puede continuar, pero la aventura principal acaba cuando llegas a la última página de este libro y eso me gustó. No me importan los finales abiertos y que se quedan en tensión, pero no quiero esperar mucho tiempo a ver cómo se resuelven. ( )

Sacrificed by Emily Wibberly

Fifteen year old Clio is the youngest of four daughters, the daughter of The Oracle of Sheehan. When her mother and sisters are murdered by Mannix the King, she becomes the Oracle. She does not understand what her powers are or her position as the oracle, but she does know she has to keep it a secret or she will be killed. Riece, an enemy warrior befriends her and she now reluctantly feels he is the only one she can trust. She has visions of Mannix overtaking Sheenan and it comes down to one thing. She must make a huge sacrifice to save her land.

I really enjoyed this story. The plot is original, exciting, and intense. Clio is very likable, and I liked the way she handle her situation. Also likable is Riece, the unlikely pair become good friends and build a camaraderie. There is a bit of romance which adds some spice to the story. Well written the story flows with enough action, drama, romance, friendship, heart felt decisions and sacrifice. Overall I find that Young Adult as well as Adult lovers of fantasy will enjoy Sacrificed. ( )