Top 5 Reasons to read The Merciless Ones by Namina Forna [Blog Tour]

Hey guys!!

How have you all been? It’s been really long since I interacted properly here, but I have set my mind to make blogging my priority in June.

May has been eventful. Too many things happened in the last two weeks, and I have been restless. I might finally be back to blogging because I’ve been itching to write and post something here for a long time. Hopefully, this weekend, I’d write my May wrap-up and slowly get back to this community. I miss being here and have my fingers-crossed that I come back for good.
Today I’m listing my top 5 reasons to read The Merciless Ones by Namina Forna that took me long enough to read, but the climax made the process worth it.

This tour will go on till the weekend so feel free to check out others posts from this Tour schedule.

Now let’s begin this tour.

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I received an eARC of this book from Random House Children’s courtesy of TBR and Beyond Tours in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

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Book DETAILS

► Title: The Merciless Ones

► BY: Namina Forna

► Publishing: Random House Children’s

► on: 31 May 2022

► GENRE: Young Adult fantasy

► Series: The Gilded Ones #2 ► pacING: slow

► paGES: 432 ► aGE: 16+ ► Rating: 3/5 ★

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BUY BOOK: AMAZON | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Indigo | IndieBound

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Fans of The Gilded Ones and Children of Blood and Bone will love the second book in an epic fantasy series about a girl who is the key to saving the empire–or its greatest threat.

It’s been six months since Deka has freed the goddesses and discovered who she really is. There are now wars waging across the kingdom. Otereans now think jatu are traitors to the nation. Deka is called a monster.

But the real battle has only just begun and Deka must lead the charge. Deka is tasked with freeing the rest of the goddesses. Only as she begins to free them, she begins to see a strange symbol everywhere in places of worship and worn on armor. There’s something unnatural about that symbol; just looking at it makes Deka lose her senses. Even worse, it seems to repel her powers. She can’t command or communicate with the new deathshrieks. In fact, she can’t even understand them when they speak.

Deka knows freeing the goddesses is just the beginning. She can tell whatever dark force out is powerful and there is something sinister out there threatening the kingdom connected to that symbol–something merciless–that her army will need to stop before humanity crumbles. But Deka’s powers are only getting stronger…and her strongest weapon could be herself.

CW: scenes of violence, including some graphic violence and description of sexual assault

ADD TO GOODREADS

The sisterhood, magic, and the ending were right in front of my eyes waiting to see what would happen to Deka and the gang. Please don’t go into this book without reading book 1 or at least skimming through it (if you’ve already read it) because I was lost for the most part trying hard to recollect what the terms meant but it all came back to me as I kept reading. Here’s why I think readers should pick this book for–

➼ Deka is more powerful in this book. She received some powers in book 1, but in The Merciless Ones we see her gaining control of her powers and growing into someone more powerful, even the gods are afraid of confronting her. As the chosen one, she has some duties to fulfill that will become clear only as we move further into the story. She has more new powers in this book and it was terrific to see her wield it in the book.

➼ Inclusivity. Through Deka’s POV, we learn more about the atrocities inflicted on men, women, and non-binary characters in the book. With the emperor defeated and the mothers having their powers restored, Deka is hopeful that they will provide a much better place that is inclusive of all genders. This book has many instances where it speaks about inequality between men and other genders. If I had the time, I’d like to psychoanalyze the plot because there’s a lot to dig deeper from this angle.

➼ Breathtaking Plot. Just when you think you know where the story is headed, it will throw you off with the truths. Just when you think you know where the story is headed, it will throw you off with the truths. There are so many juntcions where I was utterly speechless because the twists undid everything we knew about the Gilded Ones and more new theories thrown into the mix leaves us with more questions.

➼Chaos strikes again. Gods in this book never bring any sense of calm to humans or immortals lives as usual. There are two sets of Gods here and their thirst for power made everyone a pawn in their game and it was not a pretty picture.

➼ Dark Fantasy with blood magic. The blood magic in this book worked differently. It allowed Deka and the gods to control or read others past. Thanks to this gift, Deka was able to glean the truths that were deliberately kept from her.

To conclude, this was a long sequel to The Gilded Ones. Things you need to look out for are the twists and the friendship dynamic. Please keep in mind there are too many graphic scenes in the story. Besides that, the ending was terrific, and I’m looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Namina Forna is a young adult novelist based in Los Angeles, and the author of the upcoming epic fantasy YA novel The Gilded Ones. Originally from Sierra Leone, West Africa, she moved to the US when she was nine and has been traveling back and forth ever since. Namina has an MFA in film and TV production from USC School of Cinematic Arts and a BA from Spelman College. She works as a screenwriter in LA and loves telling stories with fierce female leads.

website | twitter | instagram | goodreads

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“What I truly want is to be a blade– the blade that strikes down all the gods.”

― Namina Forna, The Merciless Ones