Divine Rivals
by Rebecca Ross
Book Cover Picture:
Category: YA Romance
Target Age Group: Ages 13+
Format: Hard cover
Summary: Gods are warring after 100 years of peace. Forrest, Iris's brother, has gone to fight in the war. After Iris loses the columnist position to her work Rival, Roman Kitt, she has nothing left for her at home and decides to work for the rival newspaper as a war correspondent on the front lines, leaving her life behind. The only thing she takes with her is her grandmothers typewriter that links her to a mysterious man whom she writes to often and eventually falls in love with. Kitt, her rival, ends up also taking a war correspondent job and they end up working together again, where Iris develops feelings for him too.
Justification:. Divine Rivals landed
on several year-end best book lists, including those from the
Washington Post and Marie Claire, and received the 2023 Goodreads Choice Award for Best Young Adult Fantasy. It is also very popular on TikTok, which this age group uses regularly.
Review: This review will examine the world in the book, the romance and the overall experience of reading the book.
This fantasy book is what I would call fantasy light. There are elements of the world that you would recognize, however it is not our world. For example, Kitt's favorite pastime is watching baseball. They have typewriters and newspapers and trains like we do in our world. But they live in a different world where you would not recognize locations. There is magic all around. However, the magic system is not very well explained or built. There just "is" magic and it does things on its own. If you are interested in a deep intricate world building, this may leave you wanting more.
The romance in the book is one of the main focal points. Here's your spoiler warning for the rest of the paragraph. We have a couple of romance troupes in this novel. The first one we encounter is rivals to lovers. The two main characters start off the story as work rivals that are competing for the same coveted position. With this comes some animosity, especially from Iris. When Iris leaves to be a war correspondent, he starts to realize how much he actually cares about her and follows her down there to win her over. Meanwhile, we have a pen-pal troupe. Iris has a magical typewriter that she can send letters from to a mysterious man who she ends up falling for through their letter correspondence. There is also a pseudo love triangle. While the romance on the page is mostly G rated, there is one scene that goes into some detail but not explicitly. Over all the love story is fun, especially for the reader since we can see so much more of whats happening in the third person narrative.
The romance in the book is one of the main focal points. Here's your spoiler warning for the rest of the paragraph. We have a couple of romance troupes in this novel. The first one we encounter is rivals to lovers. The two main characters start off the story as work rivals that are competing for the same coveted position. With this comes some animosity, especially from Iris. When Iris leaves to be a war correspondent, he starts to realize how much he actually cares about her and follows her down there to win her over. Meanwhile, we have a pen-pal troupe. Iris has a magical typewriter that she can send letters from to a mysterious man who she ends up falling for through their letter correspondence. There is also a pseudo love triangle. While the romance on the page is mostly G rated, there is one scene that goes into some detail but not explicitly. Over all the love story is fun, especially for the reader since we can see so much more of whats happening in the third person narrative.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It was a great, light read. The lack world building, while mildly irksome for a high fantasy lover like myself, did make it a quick read. I honestly could not put it down. It was well written and flowed really well. The chapters were pretty short, which I think also contributes to the pace of the story. It left me hungry for the next book. Lucky for you, its a completed duology. Unlucky for me, I have a few more books to dive into first before I can circle back to it!
I will rate this a 4.5 stars because of how fast I read it, and how much it left me wanting to finish the duet.
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