young adult, fantasy
Iris and Roman are both working at the Gazette, vying for
the coveted Columnist position. They are, of course, weary of and aggravated by
each other. However, Iris has been typing messages to her brother who is away,
fighting in the gods’ war, and she sticks her letters to him under the wardrobe hoping that they might magically reach him. Meanwhile, the person who is
actually receiving the letters is Roman!
He begins to correspond with her without revealing his identity and, as he learns more about her, grows to care for her. Then, her life is up-ended and
she disappears.
Told in alternating perspectives—Iris’ and Roman’s—Divine Rivals was fun from the beginning. The two protagonists are both facing
struggles and the reader can tell they would be good for each other if they
would just be willing to open up to each other a little. I loved their
personalities.
The magic was great and the situations were engaging. I
really liked these characters and wanted to keep reading about them. I was
charmed by the storyline, even if their world was not as well-drawn. Obviously,
this is in an alternate universe when typewriters and cars exist, but is not
advanced enough to have computers or mobile phones. Magic does exist under some
unexplained and limited circumstances. There are gods who seem to be taking out
their personal differences on the humans of the world. And, for some unknown
reason, Iris thought to put letters to her brother under her wardrobe.
It was a vague outline of a world in which to set Iris
and Roman’s story, in my opinion. But I was really enjoying it anyway, until
the end. I mean, I can’t spoil it, but some very unbelievable situations
occurred in terms of the circumstances and with whom Iris chose to travel. And
then, during those travels, there was no communication between her and her
travel companion until they reached their destination. What absurdity! There is
no way conversations that needed to be had simply were avoided during that
time. It left me very disappointed. The characters behaved way too oddly and I
felt Rebecca Ross was manipulating. Because of this, I’m really not sure I care
to read the sequel. Up until the end, I was going to give this one high marks.
But, alas, I am only feeling like giving it an averagely good 3 stars.
The audiobook was narrated by Rebecca Norfolk voicing Iris’
sections and Alex Wingfield voicing Roman’s. They both did a great job. I
especially enjoyed that the production included these narrators’ voices when
their correspondence appeared in the other character’s section. In most
audiobooks with different perspectives, one person reads one character’s
sections including the other voiced characters’ lines. So this was unusual because
Wingfield’s voice was used when Iris read Roman’s letters in her section and
vice versa. However, I also wish they had taken it even further and done the
same with Iris’ and Roman’s dialogues. Alas, it was only done for their letters
to each other. I assume it’s not as easy to produce that way but I really
appreciated the bit of extra effort. I’ll give the audiobook production and its
ensemble an A-.
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