Early Review – Girls of Dark Divine by E.V. Woods (3/5 stars)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Dark Fantasy
Length: 400 pages
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Release Date: August 5, 2025
ASIN: B0DM4BR3M4
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: eGalley from NetGalley for review
Rating: 3/5 stars
“In the legendary ballet theatre of New Kora, the girls onstage enchant the audience each night with their grace and divine beauty. Before Emberlyn was the star of the show, it was her dream to become one of them . . . until she learned the price of their living nightmare.
A magical curse binds the girls to the show’s mastermind, Malcolm, whose invisible strings wield their limbs as if they are marionettes . . . and the commands don’t stop when the curtain comes down. Each dancer is destined to turn to dust once the curse consumes her.
When the troupe is invited to perform in the glitzy city of Parlizia, Emberlyn knows this could be her best chance to save them all. She meets an elusive boy made of shadows who has a magical connection to the girls. Together, they work to unravel the haunting truth about their creation and fight for their survival. But the cost of freedom might be too high, and as Emberlyn dances closer to the edge of darkness, she realizes she might break the curse . . . or break her own heart forever.”
Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I got a copy of this on ebook from NetGalley for review.
Thoughts: This was decent and I finished it, so that says something. Although I will admit by the end I was skimming portions of the book because it was fairly predictable and not much actually happened here.
We follow the lead dancer Emberlyn throughout the story, she is one of the Marionettes trapped and controlled by the Puppet Master, Malcolm. She is determined to escape his curse with or without her Marionette sisters.
This is beautifully written, and the darkly magical settings really come alive. You can almost taste and feel the items in this book. It has serious Phantom of the Opera vibes, which is cool. However, it is very slow. There isn’t much that actually happens in this book.
This is a simple and predictable story. The descriptions were beautiful and magical; there are some very sweet interactions between Emberlyn and the shadow. I liked the setting and the idea of the curse.
However, I struggled with how the curse was described…was this the only magic in this world? I never got a good feel for this world; was it a modern world, a historical world? I also struggled with how the curse was resolved. This seemed contrived and felt a bit grasping to me.
The other Marionettes definitely felt like background characters; they didn’t have much depth and were given token stereotypical personalities (caring one, difficult one, perky one). I also thought it was strange how Grace was set up to be a more major character and just dropped partway through the story. I did like that there is a focus on sisterhood and young women who are helping each other to survive.
As I said, I finished it. This was a quick and easy read. However, I was skimming a lot towards the end and was a bit disappointed when it wrapped up how I thought it would. If you are looking for a fairly simple dark, glittering YA read, this is a decent one. There isn’t a lot of depth here or really any unexpected twists. This is a very forgettable read, and I doubt I will ever think about it again or even remember that I read it in a few months.
My Summary (3/5): Overall this was okay. I loved the dark, glittering description throughout the story and thought the idea of the curse was intriguing. However, the story is predictable, and the way things wrapped up felt forced and contrived. There really wasn’t any world-building, and the side characters are paper thin. This was an easy enough read, but I found myself skimming towards the end…it was just such a simple story. I probably won’t seek out more books by Woods, but if you are looking for a dark, glittering YA read this is a decent one.
