Book Review: Upon the Darkest Mountain by Rachel L. Tilley
Genre(s): Fantasy / YA
Book Synopsis:
A curse lying over the land, seen by none but felt by all. An imposing mountain hidden in plain sight.
The world is no longer as it once was. In place of prosperity, there’s famine and drought. Magic has all but disappeared.
At Ember House, Adria exists inside a sheltered bubble, until she’s tasked with carrying provisions up a mountain for the rest of her life, and her happy world begins to fall apart.
Entirely alone, a kinship builds between her and the mountaintop’s sole occupant, but what secrets does he hide?
Claiming to have lost his memory, the man locked away in a small room is a mystery, even to himself.
Can she set him free?
Should she?
Adria’s resolve will be pushed to the limit, but there’s no going back…
Review:
Adria’s story followed a fairly typical trope in YA fantasy. She was an orphan taken in by the ruling family and given work as a servant in their household. As such, she wasn’t given an extensive education, and her placement as the caretaker for the mountain’s sole occupant (if caretaker is the right word for someone who brings food and exchanges laundry, but has no real contact with the person) comes about almost randomly. But despite her unremarkable work, Adria later learns she has an unusual ability. It’s not quite a “chosen one” theme, but pretty close.
The mysterious person she’s tasked with providing for each day is at first just a temperamental curiosity, but he turns into a pretty vile character as the book progresses. In the first half or so, I really though the author was aiming for an enemy-to-lovers romance, as it had some of those vibes, but that’s not how things unfolded. There was no romance at all, which was a nice deviation from the usual YA storyline, and honestly, this guy was so awful I doubt anyone would have been rooting for him. And he only got worse as the book went on.
My only complaint was Adria’s inexplicable fixation over a certain character’s death. The two had been friends, but only briefly, and there was nothing more to it. The compulsion Adria feels after that point seemed to come out of nowhere, and while I think it might be explained away by the influence of a certain brand of magic, it wasn’t very clear and her obsession never made any sense to me. (It was really hard to write this bit without spoilers, so I hope this makes some kind of sense.)
But anyway, the magic of this world was pretty interesting. There are basically five varieties, each used for a specific purpose—but a cataclysm of sorts generations before has leeched the entire kingdom of its magic, with the exception of the tiny pocket Adria grew up in. The world outside her little bubble was devastated; water dried up, rain ceased to fall, the cities fell into disrepair… It was a bleak landscape, but if magic were to return to the land, things would be better for the people living there.
While YA isn’t my typical go-to when it comes to fantasy, Upon the Darkest Mountain was well-written and engaging. If YA fantasy is your thing, this book will probably be to your liking, so check it out. (It’s also a standalone.)
Author’s Amazon Page: Rachel L. Tilley
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