To Cage a God by Elizabeth May

Introduction

The story follows five different characters in a Slavic-inspired world, where the rich and wealthy (the alurea) rule kingdoms, as they are born with magical gods trapped inside of them: gods that give them powers to supress, mistreat and rule over the common people. The two central main characters are the sisters Galina and Sera. Neither were born with gods, instead, gods were captured and placed in them when they were young, as an aim to overthrow the alurea. At the same time, a war is luring with the neighbouring countries, due to the King's assassination, but the Queen no less cruel and powerful. Such is the setting for this duology, and the sequel is yet to be released. 

And oh, the setting is so promising, which is why this book get a higher ranking than it deserves: it has so much potential and unique ideas, but the execution is poor beyond compare. The book is sold as a fantasy book, but the romance takes more time than I would like, and I am a huge romantasy fan. But because the plot seems to never go anywhere, the romance is the only concept that seems to evolve. The book suffers from fake deadlines within the plot, but in the end it does not matter. No one else seems to care that the Queen must be overthrown before the war starts because it never really does. I cannot see why Galina was sent to the Queen before their magical serum was complete, complicating matters to an unnecessary level. She barely interacts with the Queen anyway, so why the rush? Why is everything either a month goes by with nothing and then, suddenly, everything must be sorted within 24 hours. Oh, it was such a promising setting...

World building 

I got off on the wrong foot with this book, an anger settled inside me when I read the prologue about a nameless girl who lost everything in a fire. The following chapter is set twenty years later and is following Sera, yet she is not the girl from the prologue. The first five chapters were confusing and misleading, and I actually had to start it over to try and understand which character actually suffered during the prologue. This frustration is likely on me, and it becomes clear later on that Galina was the one who lost everything. 

But the world itself seems bland and grey. It is hard to give a world wonder when people are supressed, poor and freezing to death, but it all seemed so... normal. The only magical thing in this world are the gods themselves, and their concept is poorly explained and not at all explored in the detail I would have desired. It is also strange to me that the people were so keen at worshipping the allurea, when they quite literally never did anything for them. Sure, it is better to be alive than dead, but I felt like they were too willing to dote on the magical rich. (Maybe I am thinking that I needed a vibe more like The Hunger Games for it to appear realistic). And who does the magic even work in this world? What is the relationship between the gods and people really like? How are the gods reborn into new people, but only some suffer like Vasilisa? Nothing is ever explained because all the exciting things happens before the story starts. The book is called To Cage a God, but no gods are caged in this book. 

We arrive after the rebellion has been hunted down by the allurea, and we are left to put the pieces together we limited information. It seems hard to believe that the leader of the rebellion had time to do her own experiments for months, do research and more and keep all of this a secret from everyone. And to what end? I do not know why Sera and Galina feel so enthralled to continue their mother's research. They hid for four years after their mother's death, a time where they could have done all of the prep work needed to overthrow the allurea. With Galina's teleportation skills, it seems ridiculous that Sera had not returned to collect the necessary equipment and complete everything in the outskirts of society. At no point did I understand their sudden change of hearts to become heroes. 

Nevertheless, the world was unappealing, and the book kept repeating the same misery without much variation to it. There was a lot of tell, and barely any show of what it was like to live in the city where most of the story takes place. 

Characters

One of my biggest problems with this series was the amount of characters we had to follow. We follow the sisters Sera and Galina, but also Sera's partner Vitaly, the princess Vasilisa and the Queen's handmaiden (and Sera's spy) Katya. In most scenes, it did not add much to the story, that it was told from Vitaly's point of view compared to Sera's, as they quickly reconcile and they are never far apart from one another. The same goes from Galina and Vasilisa, none of them have many scenes without the other. Lastly, what an utter waste it was to follow Katya. She adds absolutely nothing to the story besides showing off how cruel the Queen is. Sure, she is Sera's spy, but her usefulness is still so limited. All chapters with Katya was a repeated showcase of how cruel the allurea is, yet it was never believable. The Queen shows indications that she cares for Katya and believes she treats her well, but it is so poorly executed that the falls flat. You can write a villain who believes that the pain, suffering and humiliation that Katya goes through is indeed love, however, the Queen is not portraited this way. Honestly, Katya could be deleted from the story and nothing would change. The Queen is cruel enough towards her daughter, I did not need to see her mistreat another human being repeatedly to understand that. One can only hope she gets a better role in the sequel. 

Galina and Sera can share a section together, since they are not at all that different from each other. They both suffer by their entrapped gods, and each of them have a love interest they are utterly obsessed with. Galina is perhaps more traumatised by her upbringing than Sera, and their powers are vastly different. But other than that, they are the same. I really wish their powers had been explored (or just used more!) to add to the story, but so rarely are they used for anything. Sera is more of a scientist, but we never actually follow her research, as it just happens off screen. The fact that the gods can also be trapped by science also does not hit its mark. Of course, you can mix magic and science together, but the myth of the gods is so very vague it just seems odd that they can be trapped by some injections, flowers and berries and whatnot. I would personally have preferred a magical ritual or something instead as it would have added some more magic to the story. Instead, we get injections based on research we hear nothing about...

Lastly for Vasilisa, her POV was unnecessary, but she adds interesting aspects to the story, and I would have been bored to death if Galina had had to spend time with the Queen throughout the book instead of the princess. May you get more screentime in the next volume.

My thoughts on other people's thoughts

This section will be short, as most people agree with my thoughts. The book had so much potential, but the execution was poor, the high number of narratives meant that the tension and a scene barely had time to evolve before we are flown somewhere else entirely. I personally forgive the cliches, in this day and age it is difficult not to write about falling for the bad boy, but I do not understand why Sera's relationship status is kept hiding until 25% through the book. It changes nothing that she is actually married to Vitaly, it comes as a surprise for 3 secs and then you sit there thinking okay, I guess it makes a bit more sense that she wants to go back to the capital. But why hide it? 

The reviews on Goodreads are mixed, and I believe I also fall into some of the more negative and disappointed ones. If only you could give half stars on the site.

Overall rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐★★★★★★

In conclusion, I rate this book 4 out of 10 stars, and boy, I could easily give it a lower rating. However, I still believe the original idea had some uniqueness to it I have not seen before, but it needed an editor that could tell May that no, five different POVs will not add anything to the plot, and yes, please do not place the most interesting plot points before the story starts. My primary reason to read this book was due to getting it through my Illumicrate subscription. But I am afraid to say, that having read several books from this subscription, is one is by far the biggest disappointment. Do not bother to read this book unless the sequel turns out to be spectacular.