Death Sworn by Leah Cypess

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

Series: Book 1 of Death Sworn

Publisher: Greenwillow (March 4, 2014)

Author Information: Website | Twitter

Mogsy’s Rating: 3 of 5 stars

After reading this book, I just had to look inside myself and wonder if I’m suffering from YA burnout. But now I’ve gone and painted a negative mood over this review, and that wasn’t really my intention at all! Death Sworn was in fact a pretty good book. I just don’t doubt for a second that I would have enjoyed it even more if I hadn’t already gone through so many young adult novels that displayed similar themes since the beginning of this year.

I actually really enjoyed the premise behind this one. A young sorceress whose powers are waning. A secret society of assassins. When Ileni is tasked by the Elders to tutor a group of killers in the ways of magic, what else could she do? She must do her duty and travel to the caves where the assassins make their home base, and while she’s there she might as well try and figure out what had caused the mysterious deaths of her last two predecessors.

But I suppose once you start getting a lot of the same, even the most minor of flaws become more apparent. Right away I noticed a distinct paucity of world-building. In the author’s defense though, this entire story pretty much takes place in a system of caves. While I found the lives and the culture of the assassins fascinating, there was very little context for their place in the world; for all intents and purposes their society and Ileni existed in this bubble far removed from everything else. There’s talk of outside conflict with the empire and their tyranny, but those struggles may as well have been in another universe. Leah Cypess succeeded in getting my attention – but I wanted to know more! This book was relatively short, so I can’t imagine length restrictions had anything to do with it.

I also liked the main protagonist well enough, but I wasn’t fully convinced she was someone I could root for. Ileni is the latest to join the swelling ranks of YA heroines that I think really should know better. Taking unnecessary risks and falling in love with strange, standoffish boys seem to be a popular trend these days. The romance in particular didn’t sit well with me at all. My frustration with it didn’t originate so much from the insta-love between Ileni and the assassin Sorin, but more with the way it was written.

The thing is, insta-love by itself doesn’t always have to be a negative. Sometimes an author can inject so much passion and chemistry into a relationship, it doesn’t matter if the spark ignites and flares over ten years or ten seconds – it just works. However, with Ileni and Sorin I didn’t feel any of that. Their personalities and values were at complete odds to begin with, and in a way I think Cypess did her job a little too well in making this apparent. You could immediately tell (yet understand) why Ileni and Sorin’s interactions with each other would be awkward and strained, as they come from two different worlds. Then all of a sudden, they were together. It was like one moment, Ileni was still struggling with her inability to make Sorin understand her moral objections to his work and lifestyle, the next she was reminiscing about the night of passion they spent together. Wait, what? I had to go back and make sure this really happened. Not only did the timing feel way off, I also couldn’t believe I was robbed of the sweet, delicious build up to the moment.

But make no mistake, there was plenty to like as well. Death Sworn is in part a mystery, following Ileni on her journey to find out what happened to the two tutors who came to the assassins’ caves before her, and the reasons for their demise. You’ll also be led to wonder what her flagging powers have to do with all this, and in the end the answers might shock you as they genuinely shocked me. I was impressed and totally blindsided by the twist in the story. It was impactful, and very well done.

I’m still undecided as to whether or not I will continue the series. I probably sounded harsher than I meant to be, as this was a good book and a promising start. But I made it a goal and a reading challenge to read more YA this year, but the more I read, the higher the bar is set, and my tastes have no doubt gotten a lot more finicky as compared to the start of 2014.