The Chalice and the Crown

The Chalice and the Crown feels like a fairytale from the start, yet not the Disney kind. At times the story can be dark & grim; but Flamouri\’s beautiful prose and its mysterious storyline will keep you engaged. Only minor spoilers to follow…. It is fascinating how Sasha is torn between worlds (I found myself creating a hundred different scenarios for how/why) and as the plot unfolds more mystery piles up. The ending is emotional; and as the moral dilemma is confronted and our characters\’ arcs reach their crescendo things avalanche down. Looking back I feel bittersweet; but love where the ending went. It was reminiscent of reading a Katherine Arden novel, and gave me Nutcracker-type vibes mixed with dark fantasy. So if whimsical dark fantasy that feels like a grim fairytale sounds like a good mix (it is!), start here.

The synopsis for this novel is fantastic. As soon as I read it, I wanted to read the whole book. Here I thought I was going to read a dark and gritty story, perhaps sometimes uncomfortable and difficult to get through due to its content warning, but full of depth and deeply imaginative. I know that pushing boundaries can be risky, especially in art forms. And writing certainly falls into that category. Backlash can happen, but sometimes risks are worth taking. A few quick glimpses of the lead in captivity before she is sold into slavery does not sell the premise of this story. I don\’t see how she gets there, I don\’t see her journey, and therefore I can\’t connect. If she is to struggleas one would, in these circumstancesthen I want to see that so that my emotions can be engaged. The most violent instance that I read in this book, human to human, was a whipping scene. Past that, things are lightly touched upon to give the idea of the risk and danger of this world into which the lead Sasha has been thrown into, but the reader never really delves into things. Sasha is not a likable character. Considering the fact that she is the protagonist, and the one through whose eyes we view this story, that\’s a hard pill to swallow. If she\’s not throwing a tantrum, she\’s running away from a situation because she doesn\’t like what\’s happening or what she\’s told. I get it, this is a young woman who thinks she\’s suffering from a mental illness, she\’s scared, her life is in danger, she\’s confused. But she has these abrupt and rash reactions to moments that she\’s in, that she comes across as annoying and childish. Ironically, she acknowledges this in-story more than once. And then something else happens that she doesn\’t agree with, and she behaves the same way. Abrupt. That\’s a great adjective to describe a lot of things in this novel. I see it too often, where two or more characters come together to have a discussion, they sit down, things seem about to expand… And then the conversation ends in less than ten lines. Everyone gets up, walks away, and it\’s over. This happens not only in times of dialogue, but in scene changes, in information familiarly mentioned in-story as if the reader is already supposed to know about it. Take your time, expand, give me something to hang onto so that I remember some of these moments, many meant to be full of emotion. That emotion is missing from so much. The characters are, for the most part and with the exception of Sasha, one-dimensional. A lot of them are props to help the story move along, to make certain points happen, but they don\’t really contribute much else. They are easily forgettable. The bonds between them felt weak. Save for her friendship with Sadra, Sasha doesn\’t really connect, and a big part of that is the fact that the scenes between characters are hurried along. After a blatantly obvious moment of instant attraction towards Luca (main romantic interest), we don\’t so much see their growing romance as much as we are told that it\’s going to happen. She keeps insisting in her head that it can\’t for several chapters, meanwhile he makes moony eyes at her for just as longwhich involves a lot of smirking and some blushingand then we get smacked in the face with the hard fact that they slept together at the beginning of a new chapter. Well, that was an abrupt surprise. The writing is very easy to follow, I gladly give it that. With every sit-down moment that I had to read, I raced through it. If nothing else, this is one of those books that you might not really enjoy in composition, but you still want to find out how it comes to a close. The very last scene in the book was sweet, and it was, at the very least, rewarding to see this novel end on a good note. But there were a lot of setbacks; I wasn\’t fully sold on the magic systemwhich was not expansiveoverall the book was very weakly executed for me; and the two instances of animal abuse/cruelty that appear (though minor in comparison to the rest of what happens) were poorly forewarned, ultimately unnecessary to the story, and soured some of the experience. The Chalice and the Crown has a great concept, gave me a lot of Alice in Wonderland and Swan Lake vibes, but it left me wanting a lot more than what it delivered.

Sasha is a dancer who lost her mother at a young age and is raised by her grandmother Nadia. All of her life Sasha has heard of how her mother Lara lost her mind and eventually her life. Now, Sasha fears the same illness her mother has and wakes up as a slave in the City of Roses. Through her encounters with villains and an underground organization called the \”Bird\’s Path\”, Sasha learns more about what happened to her and what may have happened to her mother. This YA book started off confusing at first which goes along well with the main character Sasha\’s confusion in her life but evolves into a terrific fantasy novel that kept me engaged until the very end. If you find yourself starting this book and wanting to stop, don\’t stop! Push through and you will be rewarded with a story of a girl that needs to decide between two worlds and the family she knows and the family she comes to know. The characters are developed well. Overall Kassandra Flamouri has brought us a novel that was a quick, engaging read! Thank you to Netgalley and the author for an opportunity to read this book. My review was not influenced by receiving this free digital copy.

What a beautiful story Kassandra has crafted. It\’s the perfect follow up to her short story collection (The Fruit of our Thorns). Like many of those tales, The Chalice and the Crown is deliciously dark, and Kassandra\’s vivid imagery brings this haunting story to life. It\’s the perfect book for curling up with every night and getting lost inside. As a protagonist, Sasha was immediately relatable, and the story got even better once she entered the world of Dreamwhispers, Catchsongs, and Honeytongues. The way Kassandra weaves the narrative between Sasha\’s two worlds is remarkably well done. Her prose has an engaging rhythm, with the words flowing like a soothing waterfall. I loved the way she painted the lush, yet eerie dream world of Kingsgarden in contrast to the cold reality of Sasha\’s true world. I will refrain from posting spoilers, but there are certain passages in this book that will move you, as Kassandra has a talent for taking real-life situations and transforming them into paintings in your imagination. The story flowed wonderfully, and every time I felt settled in, there were surprises. The emotional rise to the climax was exciting, and even then, there were more surprises to come. I had tears in my eyes upon reading the ending. Amazing debut novel. I can\’t wait for more.

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