Infinity Son Book Review

Infinity Son by Adam Silvera

Release date: 14th January 2020 [UK]

From Goodreads: Growing up in New York, brothers Emil and Brighton always idolized the Spell Walkers—a vigilante group sworn to rid the world of specters. While the Spell Walkers and other celestials are born with powers, specters take them, violently stealing the essence of endangered magical creatures.

Brighton wishes he had a power so he could join the fray. Emil just wants the fighting to stop. The cycle of violence has taken a toll, making it harder for anyone with a power to live peacefully and openly. In this climate of fear, a gang of specters has been growing bolder by the day.

Then, in a brawl after a protest, Emil manifests a power of his own—one that puts him right at the heart of the conflict and sets him up to be the heroic Spell Walker Brighton always wanted to be.

Brotherhood, love, and loyalty will be put to the test, and no one will escape the fight unscathed.

This is going to be a very short review, since I actually read this book way wayyyy back in August.

Back in July, I was super excited to find out that the Simon and Schuster stand at YALC were dropping ARCs of Infinity Son by Adam Silvera. You had to be one of the first one hundred people at the stall each day, and we were so eager to get it that, despite there being about a dozen other awesome drops at the same time, a fair few of my group decided to race over to the stall and see if we could pick up a copy. To my surprise and delight, we were successful, but it means I’ve been sitting on this review for quite some time.

To be honest, even now, I am not entirely sure what to make of the book. Infinity Son is Silvera’s first foray into fantasy fiction. It’s clearly a dream passion project for him. His twitter clearly documents his excitement while writing the book, and he’s talked about it a lot at various interviews and events. And if it wasn’t clear enough, the author’s note at the beginning of the book [I’m going by what I can see in the Advanced Reader Copy, so it might not be the same in the final published edition] is incredibly powerful and emotional. Silvera talks about his position as an LGBTQ writer, and how, growing up, he struggled to find himself represented in fantasy fiction. He discusses how he first encountered Magnus Bane in Cassandra Clare’s Shadowhunter novels, and how it made him realise he could write fantasy fiction too. I absolutely adored that we had this note going into the novel, as it was so nice to be able to see this passion for this story so clearly.

Infinity Son has quite a lot going for it. The premise of the plot is interesting, and it creates a lot of tension as the story unfolds. There’s layers to it too. On one level, the narrative is about an epic magical war that spans generations, but there’s also a lot of individual and small tension too. One of the most gripping things was probably seeing how the two brothers interacted throughout the novel, how the small tensions between them worked into the rest of the plot so smoothly. The characters, for the most part, are well developed and likeable. I found myself instantly drawn to Emil, and throughout the book I wanted to know more about him.

But, personally, I think there’s a lot of things holding Infinity Son back from its true potential. For me, it’s pretty clear that this is Silvera’s first fantasy novel. A lot of the world building is glossed over or skipped entirely. And while I’m okay with jumping in at an interesting point and getting explanations for stuff later, there were many instances where this just didn’t happen. It might seem a bit pedantic that I’m mentioning this, but it was incredibly frustrating throughout the entire book. Wands appeared from nowhere, as did something called gem-grenades. It’s self explanatory, except it really isn’t. There’s not much exploration of how magic is used in this world, nothing about what wands are or what they do. Most importantly, there’s very little information given to the reader about phoenixes, which has a pretty big effect on the overall story. I found it hard to follow at times, and often there were moments or twists and turns in the book that fell flat because something magical happened to solve a problem. Except, since I had no sense of how magic functions and what rules they are for it, it felt more like a deus ex machina than it did a satisfying plot twist.

There’s also the kinda predictable ending to the story. Admittedly, it was obvious the plot was heading to that conclusion, so I don’t know if it’s entirely fair for me to say it was predictable. It was simply doing what it said on the tin. But it did somehow feel unsatisfying, as I kinda hoped for more to grab on to.

That’s not to say Infinity Son is a bad book. It’s actually not that bad, and a lot of the creases are things that I imagine Silvera will iron out in future fantasy novels, if he chooses to stick with them. It’s also a fantasy novel with heaps of awesome diversity, and if nothing else, the book deserves some praise and recognition for this. There’s a lot going for Infinity Son, and while I feel that we’re probably going to continue to have magical things happen without explanations, it’s also not a bad first attempt. There’s a lot of positives to take away from it. At the very least, I’d be interested in picking up book two when it comes out, just to see how the story develops and if the world-building improves.

Overall, I’d give Infinity Son:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I loved the characters, and the concept of the book is pretty cool and different to many things I’ve seen before. It’s kind of a little like Marissa Meyer’s Renegades series, except with more of a fantasy grounding. However, I did think the lack of world-building and explanations of how the magic system worked held the book back quite a bit, and it made the plot generally a bit confusing and unsatisfying.

Has anyone else read this book already or plans to? What do you all think of it? Let me know in the comment section down below ❤