Jase Puddicombe

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!

The world of "The Life Giver" is an interesting one. A society of people that live entirely underground, and whose society is guided by a mysterious god. The god is a sun deity called The Life-Giver. The Life-Giver communicates their will to their people through a mildly complicated system of Dreamers, Scribes, and Designers. But when something goes awry with the Dreamers, the Council tries to lay the blame at the Life Giver's feet. Our main protagonists, a Dreamer named Annelie and her Scribe, Lyam, learn of the conspiracy created by the Council and set out to fix the corruption that lies deep within their society's heart. The worldbuilding was cleverly written and was slowly rolled out so that as you read, you learned more and more about how the world of The Life Giver functions. The relationship between Annelie and Lyam is an interesting one. It's very clear that they love each other deeply and are on the level of soul mates, but the story never makes it romantic. Their relationship stays fully platonic and familial. This is a lovely change of pace since a lot of YA stories would have thrown in a random romantic subplot for no reason. Enoch was also an interesting character, though it's obvious he is meant to get the plot moving. The speed of the plot was a bit rocky for me; it moved along at a decent pace but slowed down to almost a snail's crawl in the middle. It picks back up near the end of the story, however, so it's just a small hurdle to get over. A slow down in plot isn't really a make-or-break part of a novel either way. The world of The Life-Giver is so unique that I'm struggling to compare it to any other type of fantasy book. The concept of magical dreams is nothing new, but the way this story uses them, makes the concept feel brand new. The mystery of the book is what really drove me to complete the book. I wanted to know why the Life-Giver was acting how they did, what was really going on with the Dreamers, who the heck Enoch really is, and so on. If it wasn't for my intense desire to find out the answer to the mysteries, I probably would have struggled more with that plot dip. All in all, The Life Giver has an amazingly created world, with characters who are easy to connect with. After a small look, it appears this is the author's first book! I loved this story, so I will be looking out for their future works!… (más)