State of Sorrow Book Review

State of Sorrow by Melinda Salisbury

From Goodreads: Sorrow – for that is all she brings us.

A people laid low by grief and darkness.
A cut-throat race for power and victory.
A girl with everything and nothing to lose…

By day, Sorrow governs the Court of Tears, covering for her grief-maddened father, who has turned their once celebrated land into a living monument for the brother who died before she was born.

By night, she seeks solace in the arms of the boy she’s loved since childhood. But one ghost won’t stop haunting her, and when enemies old and new close ranks against her, Sorrow must decide how far she’s willing to go to win…

A huge thanks to Moon Kestrel for sending me a copy of this book to read!

I wasn’t certain, when State of Sorrow came out, if I wanted to read it or not. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the Sin Eater’s Daughter and I decided not to pick up any of the other books in the series. But then I read the synopsis of this book, and thought it sounded pretty intriguing. And then Fairyloot put it in their birthday box, and I was even more curious to know if I’d maybe written Melinda Salisbury’s books off a little too soon. When Moon sent me the book, I was keen to start it straight away, but got swept along on the tbr current instead, so I’ve only managed to approach it now.

And I am very pleased I did.

To be honest, it started kinda slow. The prologue bit was interesting, and I wanted to know how it fit with the rest of the story, but I knew it wasn’t the main characters and that meant I struggled to connect to it a bit. With fantasy books,  I find it a bit of a turn off to have a load of world-building and stuff packed into the first pages, and I just sorta rushed through it, hoping to get to the stuff about the main character, Sorrow.

After that though, I fell into the world quickly. The idea of a country which has outlawed art and music, reading and happiness, even smiles are punished, sounded really fresh and new to me. And it made me instantly like Sorrow, a girl who has had to cope with a lot without ever getting acknowledgement from her father, and who doesn’t want to take over the country either. I loved seeing how she struggled against what she wanted and her responsibility, and how she desired things to change in order to make the country bright and beautiful again.

The cast of characters was great. Irris was a cool friend, and Charon made for a brilliant father figure. I wasn’t so keen on Rasmus, for some reason I just couldn’t make myself care about him. But Luvian totally stole the show for me. He was funny and arrogant, intelligent and cutting, quick-witted and determined, and I really hope Melinda Salisbury gives us more Luvian in the next book. He worked well as Sorrow’s partner in crime; they made an excellent team, even if she spent more time eye-rolling at him than campaigning haha.

Plot-wise, I don’t want to spoil much, but I will say there’s at least two brilliant plot twists in there. The first one comes pretty early on, and the whole book is essentially centred around it. The other is just… wow. I think Salisbury does an excellent job of turning a YA trope on its head, and I would have loved her book just for that. Honestly, I was kept on my toes the whole way through, trying to figure out everything as I went. Sometimes I managed, but most of the time I was pleasantly surprised by the twists and turns.

There’s lots of emotion packed into State of Sorrow, and the descriptions are gorgeous too. If you want a book that manages to be a firm all-rounder, this one is for you. I’m giving it a 9/10.

You can buy a copy from Waterstones UK here, Amazon UK here, or Book Depository here. Melinda Salisbury will also be a guest at YALC convention in London in July this year, so if you want to go along and meet her, you can buy a ticket from their site.