Friday, June 18, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Ravage the Dark by Tara Sim

 




Ravage the Dark is the sequel and second half of a duology by Tara Sim which began with Scavenge the Stars last year (My review of that book is here).  That book was the start of a Dark YA Fantasy story inspired heavily by the Count of Monte Cristo, featuring two protagonists - Amaya, a girl whose father was killed and who was sold to a debtor ship for his alleged debts as a child who comes back to her island city seeking revenge and Cayo, a gambling/alcohol addicted son of a rich merchant with a heart of gold, who is desperate to save his sister from a deadly illness.  As in the inspiration story, Amaya winds up targeting Cayo in a con because Cayo's father is the man seemingly responsible for her father's death, but the two find themselves attracted to one another....until a series of betrayals throws everything into chaos.  It was not a light YA tale, with it making some pretty dark choices in terms of betrayals, deaths, and outcomes, but it worked really well especially with its two lead protagonists.  So I was really excited to get my hands on the sequel via inter-library loan.  

Ravage the Dark on the other hand.....works a bit less well.  The story itself is fine, and Cayo and Amaya and some of the side characters are certainly very easy to like and root for, as Sim puts them both through the emotional ringer once again.  But there's far more material here both plotwise (two empires, a counterfeit scheme spreading sickness, a neutral city caught in the middle, family members under threat, alchemists, pickpockets and more, etc ) and character-relationship wise, especially the relationship between Amaya and Cayo, than the book has room for.  It's kind of a thing these days for YA series to be duologies, and usually the problem there is that it features two books with only enough material for one, but in this case, there's clearly a trilogy worth of material here, and not three books.  And so too much of what happens is rushed all the way through for a conclusion.  It's not a bad book - and it will tear at your heartstrings badly at least once - but it still feels like a bit of a let down.  
------------------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------------------------
Amaya and Cayo have fled Moray, where things fell apart for the both of them.  Amaya was betrayed by Boon, who was using her to distribute counterfeit coins to destroy Moray's economy....coins which were responsible for the seemingly incurable plague killing the residents of the city, and she couldn't even get her revenge on Kamon Mercado the man she thought had destroyed her father; except in the end that turned out to be Boon as well.  Cayo meanwhile discovered his father's complicity in the counterfeit scheme, his father's alliance with the Slum King, and how his sister's illness was essentially caused by his father's own evil deeds.  And to make it worse, the girl Cayo was falling for, Countess Yamaa, didn't actually exist and was this girl Amaya all along, who had been partially playing him to get to his father.  

Amaya, Cayo and their allies, the 3 agents betrayed by Boon and Amaya's debtor ship friend Remy (formerly known as Roach) are heading to the Rain Empire, which is the best chance for Cayo's sister Soria to find a cure for her illness.  There, they hope they can track down the person helping Kamon Mercado and/or Boon with the counterfeit scheme, to stop that person and their enemies and to save the city they both called home originally.  But the Rain Empire is a new territory with its own dangers, and Amaya and Cayo can barely look each other in the eye....and without learning to trust each other once again, they may not be to survive long enough to save the people they care about and to get back at those that wronged them.....
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As I mentioned in my review of Scavenge the Stars, there's a lot of stuff in the setting of this duology that finally comes at least a little bit into play.  So whereas before we were in the independent city state wanted by two neighboring enemy Empires, here we're in one of the Empires, or at least in a conquered city state that one of those Empires maintains an uneven rule.  So we have former nobility plotting possible rebellion behind the scenes, an actual underground plotting their own rebellion, to go along with things like alchemists, street urchins, and a city with its own character.  And yet, unlike Moray, we don't really get to know this city as well for it to truly be its own character like the city from last book.  

What we do get to see is both Cayo and Amaya have to deal with learning a new city quickly, trying to handle their new circumstances and to move forwards in improved ways.  For Cayo that's trying to be useful without his monetary and privileged backing, whether that be getting a job for the first time in his life, spying on people he overhears, or just learning to fight so that he isn't constantly robbed by street toughs.  For Amaya, that's learning to think before she acts - although she certainly still acts impulsively at times, and learning to help others like her rogue ally Liesl with her own need for vengeance and rescuing not make Amaya's own mistakes.  The two lead characters here, as well as some of the side characters - Liesl in particular, who turns out not just to be a potential assassin and thief, but a former revolutionary who was betrayed and had her sister go missing as a result - are what carry this novel and make it worth reading, and this book again puts them both through the ringer....again this is a dark fantasy tale, with happy endings hard to come by, and your heartstrings will be tugged hard as everyone gets hit hard by events that occur.  

Unfortunately, while the heartstrings are tugged hard, and those characters work really well at times, there's so much going on here that there just isn't enough page length here for it all to work.  So as previously mentioned, we never really get to know the new city before we leave it 60% of the way through back to Moray - and then we never really get to see how Moray has changed before events suddenly occur there.  Conflicts are resolved and characters are found because the plot needs them to be resolved, issues involving class conflict and what not, involving access to experimental cures for the plague (a very big deal issue in today's world!) or the schemes of the eventual bad guys are never really explored, and everything just feels highly highly rushed or winds up going nowhere.  And then the main bad guy, whose identity is discovered in the final few chapters, is dealt with in an adventure that occurs with side characters TOTALLY off page, as if it was another story entirely instead of pertinent details.  

Even worse, this actually affects the romantic relationship between Cayo and Amaya, which worked so well in book 1 and just seems half baked in this book.  So like we get early moments set to cause romantic fireworks like a training scene where Amaya helps teach him how to fight which doesn't really go anywhere or ratchet up the sexual tension*, a heist scene where the two are pretending to be married that features a kiss as a distraction that then doesn't really get acted upon, and then sigh the ending.  The events in the final arc, taking place back in Moray are so rushed, that there's never a moment where the main characters actually get to resolve their difficulties or deal with the various lies and truths withheld, and to have those moments of emotional resolution that are really deserved.  They just wind up seemingly together at the end...and it's like, wait what?  That's it?  

*This is the level of YA where you may have a scene in a place with people in scanty-clothing or undress (a brothel I think), references to sex, but the main characters will never have sex in this book on page or off page at all, if you were wondering*

You could easily have reimagined this series as a trilogy, with the first book standing alone the second book being entirely in the rain empire, and the third being back in Moray, which would have allowed for both the plot and the character relationship that is at the series' center to develop more smoothly, with time for the emotional beats they truly deserved.  Instead you get Ravage the Dark, which still tugs the heart and works well enough to not be bad, but to not really reward readers in the way Scavenge the Stars promised.  

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