A Review for Venus City (Legacy of the Sares #1) by Tabitha Vale

Posted by Guest Reviewer Melanie

Published Date: February 14th, 2012

Finished Date: March 11th, 2012

Publishers: Self-Published Author

Source: For Review

Format: Kindle

Pages: Unknown

The Blurb from Goodreads: "His magenta eyes flashed up to meet hers and for a moment she thought she saw something spark behind them—something fierce, something challenging." In a city where boys’ eyes are magenta and their emotions of lust, anger, greed, and ambition are remarkably absent, spoiled Braya Vace finds herself in the biggest problem of her young life when she meets handsome, blue-eyed Asher Benedict. It wasn’t supposed to be possible. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone else living outside Venus City. As she tries to unravel the mystery of Asher and his group of foreigner boys, the rest of Braya’s life seems to crumble apart around her. A disapproving mother, a sick younger sister, a mysterious brother, and a humiliating career as a Bride are just a few of the things that Braya has to deal with. Those, and her conflicting feelings for Asher.

The Review: Braya Vace lives in Venus city; she has been brought up privileged with every opportunity available to her and considering her mother is a very important person, they have been vast. Now it comes to the time in her life when Braya must chose a career and she expects only the best, why wouldn’t she? She is a crown, and crowns are the elite in the Venus City society. Venus city has a strict class system, in which you career defines you and men are the lowest of the low, with magenta eyes and no feelings – not fit for anything but Braya’s disdain – they are just born that way and so, after a disastrous career interview, Braya is given a position that is way beneath her, that of Bride – nothing more than a breeding machine. She is horrified and expects her mother to make things right, but will she help? With her sister being sick also, she is persuaded to stay in order to search for a cure and tries to make do until things are sorted out but then she comes across some new boys, boys whose eyes aren’t magenta, boys like Asher . . . . . and her world is blown apart!

Well, I was really surprised by this book and what started out as just ok turned into something really good. I suppose you could class this book as dystopian, an imaginary society build on a set of beliefs, different to our own with certain magic, powers, technology etc. but for all it has a futuristic feel, their class system and prejudice has a sexist, dated feel to it – obviously that is needed though otherwise all would be well in Braya’s world. Braya wasn’t the best of characters to warm to especially with her views on people and the ways of the world but you can understand her because those views were drummed into her from an early age and that type of thing isn’t easily broken, she reminded me of one of the ‘mean girls’. She has such a black & white perspective that she refuses to see any grey areas until she can’t deny them any longer. That starts to change with the appearance of Asher and the Locers, a bunch of foreigners who have managed to slip into the city on some sort of mission and by using a master/slave bond on Braya, she is forced to help them and is drawn to Asher as a result. That’s when she starts to see a little of the grey but is so stubborn about being who people expect her to be that she refuses to see what’s in front of her both as a whole and emotionally. So it does take a lot to like her and when I allowed myself to, I sort of understood her. I think what brought me round the most was when she was with Asher and her sister because some of her vulnerability came through, softening her a little and humanising her.

The plot was definitely where it’s at though, I have to say that in the beginning I was pretty confused with all the information about classes, jobs and areas but once that was out of the way it got really interesting and I felt like there was two stories in one book and not in a bad way either. It was really interesting as everything was revealed and when you thought you could trust one person, you couldn’t and then you thought it was going to go one way and it didn’t. There were so many twists and turns that you really have no idea about, they’re just sprung on you and leave you wondering where that just came from and to be honest that is what turned this around for me and made it from a good book into a really good book. There is also this elaborate game that features heavily throughout the book which I didn’t think would be good but has a very important role in the book and turned out to be not so bad too. So after the not so great start I kept on reading and by the end of the book, I was so into it that I didn’t want it to end and I’m glad I stick to the ‘If I start it, I finish it’ rule otherwise I would have missed out on what this book really was about and book two - Ephraim City (Legacy of the Sares, #2) is already on my TBR list.