Carve the Mark (Carve the Mark, #1)

by Veronica Roth

Fans of Star Wars and Divergent will revel in internationally bestselling author Veronica Roth’s first title in a stunning new science-fiction fantasy series.

Cyra is the sister of the brutal tyrant who rules the Shotet people. Cyra’s currentgift gives her pain and power – something her brother exploits, using her to torture his enemies. But Cyra is much more than just a blade in her brother’s hand: she is resilient, quick on her feet, and smarter than he knows.

Akos is from the peace-loving nation of Thuvhe, and his loyalty to his family is limitless. Though protected by his unusual currentgift, once Akos and his brother are captured by enemy Shotet soldiers, Akos is desperate to get his brother out alive – no matter what the cost. When Akos is thrust into Cyra’s world, the enmity between their countries and families seems insurmountable. Will they help each other to survive, or will they destroy one another?

Carve the Mark is Veronica Roth’s stunning portrayal of the power of friendship - and love - on a planet where violence and vengeance rule.

• ISBN13: 9780008157821
• Publish Date: 17 January 2017
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 29 August 2022
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: Harper Fire
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 528
• Language: English
• URL: http://harpercollins.co.uk

Reviews

[writehollydavis]

I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about this book because I heard mixed reviews, but I really enjoyed it! I think my reader self was craving a sci-fi. Roth had strong writing and prose, and I became attached to Akos and Cyra and rooted for them til the end. Looking forward to reading the sequel soon.

[anne]

Quite violent. Definitely not turn the other cheek plot. Interesting approach to empathy and seeing people from different perspectives.

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

About 10% of the way into Carve the Mark, I started fishing through friend reviews on Goodreads. I was bored. I wanted to know if other people were bored, too. It seemed like – overwhelmingly – they were! I also learned that there was a lot of controversy surround this book, so I think it’s only fair to point out a little bit of it.

- The publisher sponsored many reviews. This means that they paid prominent bloggers, vloggers, and Goodreads accounts to read the book. This is totally different than simply providing an ARC – there’s so much more pressure to give a good review because you’re receiving actually cash money, which makes it a little more difficult to know who’s being honest about it.
- One of the protagonists suffers from chronic pain. I’m going to detail this more in my review later, because this aspect was the one I really thought was poorly handled.
- There’s some problematic racism stuff. I actually didn’t pick up much on this, but a lot of other reviewers saw it loud and clear that there was a pale-skinned diplomatic race, and a violent and corrupt darker-skinned race. I may have missed most the details on skin color here because I was zoning in and out of the audiobook (like I said, bored!) but I think it needs mentioning.
Okay, so now that we’ve addressed these things, let’s talk about Carve the Mark as a book.

The world-building aspects of this book were overwhelmingly slow and bogged down the plot. We are introduced to places and people that make no difference in the story and make the world a lot broader. If this were an epic fantasy novel, I would applaud this type of storytelling, because it fits within the genre. However, Carve the Mark is a YA Science-Fiction Romance and the lallygagging didn’t add anything to the story that my imagination would not have filled in otherwise. There are too many names and too many minor details for the genre, and because of this, a lot of people are DNF-ing this book. I almost did, too. But I wanted to write this review. 😉

In regards to the genre, this very well could have been a fantasy novel and you almost would not have noticed. There’s a section of the story where Cyra and Akos go on a “sojourn” to another planet and Cyra’s brother – the wicked sovereign Risek – brokers an alliance. This whole trip took up a good chunk of the middle of the book and had a lot of potential to be all science-fictiony and spacey and instead there was a lot of focus on the interior. I honestly kept forgetting that this culture had advanced technology because there’s so much conversation about fighting styles and current gifts.

Current gifts are another issue altogether. Cyra Noavek is gifted with pain as her “current gift”… which is basically a coming-of-age magic. I have a few issues with this.

-Current gifts are described as something that defines the character. Cyra is told a couple times that she feels pain because she believes everyone deserves pain. She fights against this at the beginning, but embraces it at the end.
-For someone experiencing chronic pain all over all the time, she functions perfectly well. So even if Roth wanted to use this, she didn’t bother to show how crippling it truly is. There’s a few scenes in the beginning where Cyra is drugging herself endlessly with painkillers, which is a whole additional issue.
- Cyra chooses not only to accept that the pain is a part of her character, but decides that pain is a gift – and pain is never a gift. She says that because she’s in pain, it has made her strong. I see the “you can overcome anything!” message here, but there’s a difference between finding strength in resilience, and deciding that chronic pain is a gift, not a curse.

This is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to both Cyra’s behavior and her gift, but I am exasperated enough that I felt like it needed some outlining. I think there are a lot of ways that Veronica Roth could have taken this character without making her current gift chronic pain, especially since she didn’t even follow through with it, and it was a disappointing thing to read. You can hurt people without pain being your “superpower”.

And there were a lot of unnecessary aspects that came out of the current gift situation. The Oracles, for example. There’s a lot of hullaballoo made about these characters, but ultimately, they just float around being generally useless outside of making people paranoid about their destiny. Cool concept – failure to execute effectively strikes again! With the Oracles and around the other characters, the plot was a bit of a mess. She wanted to do a lot of things, while also building this huge sandbox world where she could tie all of her characters together and say, “look how cleverly everything comes together!” Only, it doesn’t? Sometimes there are too many coincidences and I am utterly unimpressed. And this comes in the details.

Honestly, reading this book was like watching a movie, but with white tissue paper taped over the screen. You can see the lights and shapes and colors, but it’s all a bit blurry and nonsensical. You can sort of see what the story could have been, but ultimately Carve the Mark tries way too hard.

Before I wrap up this rambling review, I want to give you a list of some of the trigger warnings I noticed that I am not widely seeing discussed:

Chronic pain (obviously)
Self-mutilation
Torture
Rape (not in your traditional sense, but the relationship between Risek and Ija screams this to me)
Brainwashing
Racism
Ableism

Everyone will react differently, but I think it’s important that these things are out there so you can make your own educated choice of whether or not to read this based on these elements. Some people are saying that the trigger warnings folks are giving are overdramatic – other people are saying that they aren’t loud enough. Personally, I’d rather have them than not!

All in all, I felt like this book was a huge waste of my time? I can’t think of a moment where I was roped into the story enough that I lost myself, and with a book this thick, that should have happened. Instead, I found myself making snarky comments at some of the more ridiculous details. I thought the audiobook readers did a fine job with the content and that the cover is beautiful and that this book should have been at least 100 pages shorter, contained more actual science fiction, and made a few different core choices.

[anastasia]

Full Review on my blog!

Wow!!! Veronica Roth is back with a bang. And better than ever.

“Honor has no place in survival.”

Carve The Mark is an deeply riveting sci-fi thriller with non-stop action, heart-breaking betrayal, and an intense survival story that will keep readers flipping pages right up until the captivating ending. Carve The Mark is one of the most highly anticipated books of 2017…..and it without a doubt lives up to the hype! I devoured Carve The Mark and cannot wait for readers everywhere to read this fantastic book!

“You’re a Noavek,” he said stubbornly, folding his arms. “Brutality is in your blood.”

The pace was perfect, the world-building, which was CRUCIAL in this book, was flawlessly done. The visuals, as in Divergent, are very vivid in this book too. The point where I found out the reason for the name of this book; I think my parents thought I was going crazy the way I was jumping and squealing.

“He would die for his loved ones….
She has to kill for hers…..”

Veronica Roth also has a wonderful way of developing side characters without boring the reader. I love the complexity of the characters in this book. Each character has there issues/flaws and neither is all good or all bad. I want to keep this spoiler free, so that’s all I’ll say about this. Let’s just say, there is a lot of character growth throughout the whole book. This is the type of book that swoops in and steals your attention from the first page.

“Akos touched her face. When he first met her, he thought she was this fearsome thing, this monster he needed to escape. But she had unfurled bit by bit, showing him her wicked humor by waking him with a knife to his throat, talking about herself with unflinching honesty, for better or worse, and loving- so deeply- every little bit of this galaxy, even the parts she was supposed to hate…..”

Overall, I think this is a book you should DEFINITELY read if you are into YA. There’s romance, friendship, family bonding, and a whole new galaxy waiting for you. I’m excited about this novel and where it’s going and I can’t wait to jump on the next Sojourn ship she puts out for this series. I highly recommend it!

*Quotes were taken from the book*

Blog | Instagram | Twitter | Tumblr | Facebook | Store

[Kim Deister]

I honestly don't know how to feel about this book. I wanted to like it, but I couldn't help but notice the vaguely racist tone to it. And that turned me off the entire story.

The story revolves around Akos and Cyra, two people from different tribes. They share a planet, but share no peace. Akos is from the Thuvhe nation, the son of one of the three Oracles. This places him in the equivalent of the upper middle class. And he is white. Normally, I could care less about race and rarely find a need to even mention it, but it is important here. Cyra is from the Shotet nation, the sister of the tyrannical leader of their people. And she is black.

Why is race important? Because the Thuvheits are portrayed as peaceful and civilized, while the Shotet are brutal savages. Yes, the race lines are blurred between the two main characters, but the characterization still exists. Even the languages of the two tribes is described in privileged ways. The Thuvhe language is described as beautiful and lyrical, while the Shotet language is called harsh with its stops and hard sounds.

There were moments where the brutality displayed by the Shotet ruler were essentially rape. True, it wasn't sexual, but it involved forcible entry and theft into another's mind. It makes sense within the book, but I don't want to give it away.

It was because of this brutality that Cyra's gift manifested, the trigger being pain. When medical advice is sought, she is told that the pain she feels comes from herself, is her choice, and is her fault. Later, she makes the comment that she deserves it. The pain was caused by what amounts to rape, but her character feels she deserves the pain? That idea is very reminiscent of the rape culture.

And lastly, the religion of the Shotet seemed to be based at least in part on the Muslim faith. There was a lot of negativity in its portrayal and that just seemed to perpetuate stereotypes.

Even aside from all of that, I just couldn't connect to the characters. The story was slow and even when it did pick up, it was too late for me. All in all, I think I will pass on the rest of the series.

[Nessa Luna]

Actual rating: 3,5. When it was first announced Veronica Roth, the author of one of my favourite book series ever, was writing another book, I was 100% going to buy it on publication date. I had no idea what the book would be about, or if it would even be 'up my alley', but I was going to buy it. As more got announced about the book, I got even more excited, because this was definitely up my alley.

Carve the Mark tells the story of two people from different cultures. We have Cyra, a Shotet, whose currentgift not only brings other people pain but herself as well. Then, there's Akos, a Thuvesit, who is most loyal to his family and has an unusual currentgift which may be exactly what Cyra needs.

There has been a lot of controversy surrounding this book, and I am not going to address that, other than say that I didn't experience the book the way these people did. I did however not love this book, not as much as I did with Divergent, at least.

CtM was a great science fiction book with lots of world-building, but to be honest the first half if not the first two/thirds of the book were rather boring. There was mostly world-building going on, getting to know the characters and the planets the story took place on, but not a lot of action. I was used to the action-packed Divergent trilogy Veronica wrote, and I think I was expecting this book to be exactly that, but in space. Yet, I found myself putting the book down more often than actually read it, and that made me sad.

It kind of felt a bit like Star Wars, which I had been expecting because the book had been pitched as 'for fans of Star Wars' I believe. But the whole currentgift and currentblade thing made me think of a combination of Mutants and Jedi. (Jedi Mutants? How about that). I'm not saying it's a bad thing, though, because I did really enjoy this aspect of the story, but the moment currentblades were described I was like 'lol lightsabers'.

Character-wise, this book was really good. I loved Cyra, and I loved Akos almost right from the start. There were some characters I'd rather throw off a large wall, and there were characters I didn't like at first but who grew on me in the end. The names were very difficult to remember and pronounce though, so I think maybe it would have been good to add a pronunciation guide in the book itself. I also didn't find it as difficult to imagine what the characters looked like, because Veronica had (re)posted some fanart on Instagram a while back (of Cyra, Akos and Ryzek check it out, it's amazing!)

The writing also felt a bit different from Divergent, as I kind of said before, but it was still enjoyable and I did really love the fact I was reading another Veronica Roth book. Still, I do think some parts of this book could have been scrapped, and I think the fighting parts should have been more extended. (show spoiler)[There were some arena fights, that were over in less than a page, and those were the parts that could have really made it worthwhile for me] (hide spoiler)

In the end, I enjoyed Carve the Mark but I can't say it's a new favourite. I will probably pick up the second (and final?) book in this series, but I'm not sure I'll be first in line to pick it up so to say.

My opinion in one gif:

[Stephanie]

Veronica Roth, you did me dirty with Divergent. I was super hesitant to read this book. But then when people kept asking me, "How is it?" I could only, tentatively, hesitantly, surprisingly respond with, "It's... really good?"

I'm calling us even, for now.