Early Review – When Among Crows by Veronica Roth (4/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Length: 176 pages
Publisher:‎ Tor Books
Release Date: May 14, 2024
ASIN: B0CJQ918PF
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: eGalley from NetGalley for Review
Rating: 4/5 stars

“Pain is Dymitr’s calling. To slay the monsters he’s been raised to kill, he had to split his soul in half to make a sword from his own spine. Every time he draws it, he gets blood on his hands.

Pain is Ala’s inheritance. When her mother died, a family curse to witness horrors committed by the Holy Order was passed onto her. The curse will claim her life, as it did her mother’s, unless she can find a cure.

One fateful night in Chicago, Dymitr comes to Ala with a bargain: her help in finding the legendary witch Baba Jaga in exchange for an enchanted flower that just might cure her. Desperate, and unaware of what Dymitr really is, Ala agrees.

But they only have one day before the flower dies . . . and Ala’s hopes of breaking the curse along with it.”

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I got an ebook for this from NetGalley to review..

Thoughts: This was a quick read that I somewhat enjoyed. Now that I am sitting down to write this review though I find myself struggling a bit to remember it. It’s fairly forgettable. I did enjoy the inclusion of Russian folklore/mythology throughout. Previous to this I had read Roth’s Divergent series and somewhat enjoyed that as well (I loved the first book but was struggling by the last book in the series).

Dymitr gets an enchanted flower and hopes to cut a bargain with Ala. He will help figure out to use the flower to cure Ala’s curse if she will help him find Baba Jaga.

This is a shorter book and you can tell. I never engaged well with the characters and the world was hard to picture. The world was modern Chicago but with other races and a Holy Order that hunts down and kills those other races. It reminded me a lot of the world in Seanan McGuire’s InCryptid series.

I just now read the synopsis as I was putting together this review and it reveals what is a huge plot twist in the book. I am so happy I didn’t read the synopsis before reading the book. That huge plot twist is one of the things I really liked about this story.

There are some good action scenes in here and I did really enjoy how the races are based off Russian folklore and mythology. I just felt like the whole book was a quick and unfinished glimpse into this world. Novellas can be written that really pull the reader in and this was not one of those for me. I finished it, I vaguely enjoyed it, and it is completely forgettable.

My Summary (4/5): Overall this was decent. I liked the Russian mythology and it is a quick and easy read. I enjoyed the idea of the Holy Order and their painful swords and I always enjoy it when different races of cryptids are hidden in the modern world. The whole thing felt unfinished to me though. The world-building was incredibly thin and the characters were hard to engage with, they felt very stiff. I did enjoy some of the twists and turns which are completely spoiled by the synopsis (so happy I didn’t read the synopsis until after I read the book). I think for now I will skip Roth’s books. As much as I liked the first book in the Divergent trilogy, I just have found the other books I have read by her to be so-so.