So I heard about Queen of Faces from the blurb by Chloe Gong and it was sheer perfection. I understand fully why Chloe loved this one – the parallels are so good – and this book truly took me for a spin! Keep reading this book review of Queen of Faces for my full thoughts.
Summary
Anabelle Gage is trapped in a male body, and it’s rotting from the inside out. In Caimor, where the magical elite buy and swap designer bodies like clothes, Ana can’t afford to escape her tattered form. When she fails the entrance exam to the prestigious Paragon Academy, her last hope of earning a new body implodes. As the clock ticks down to her last breath, she’s forced to use her illusion magic to steal a healthy chassis—before her own kills her.
But Ana is caught by none other than the headmaster of Paragon Academy, who poses a brutal ultimatum: face execution for her crime or become a mercenary at his command. Revolt brews in Caimor’s smog-choked underworld, and the wealthy and powerful will stop at nothing to take down the rebels and the infamous dark witch at their helm, the Black Wraith.
With no choice but to accept, Ana will steal, fight, and kill her way to salvation. But her survival depends on a dangerous band of an impulsive assassin, a brooding bombmaker, and an alluring exile who might just spell her ruin. As Ana is drawn into a tangled web of secrets, the line between villain and hero shatters—and Ana must decide which side is worth dying for.
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
From the premise alone, I fell in love with Queen of Faces. I loved the idea of body changing, of the explorations of gender, class, and ambition. In many ways, it’s a book about survival and being forced to evolve. The world is so rich and I cannot wait to see where this series goes next. This is one of the rare books I was talking to my family about while reading because I was just so obsessed. With multiple POVs, Queen of Faces keeps you guessing. It features an intricate and fascinating magical system which features characters driven by revenge and ambition. In some ways, it’s a story about an academy driven by a fear of failure, but it also examines class and those history sees as necessary collateral and people it underestimates.
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I had no choice…people love to say that, when they’re taking away yours.
Queen of Faces is a story about heroes and monsters and what happens when we can’t tell the difference. We have to fight for our bodies, our name, our power. The plot revolves around people we betray for ambition, to get ahead, but what happens when our regrets and guilt catch up to us. Queen of Faces evolves into a story which explodes on the political plane. What starts as a story about survival and the way the rich go through bodies like nothing turns into a story about propaganda, betrayal, and crafted self-defense. How much will we care about those we think of as ‘not Us’?
Find Queen of Faces on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop. org, Blackwells, & Libro. fm.