Uptown Oracle Reads… The Diminished

In the Alskad Empire, nearly all are born with a twin, two halves to form one whole…yet some face the world alone. A rare few are singleborn in each generation, and therefore given the right to rule by the gods and goddesses. Bo Trousillion is one of these few, born into the royal line and destined to rule. Though he has been chosen to succeed his great-aunt, Queen Runa, as the leader of the Alskad Empire, Bo has never felt equal to the grand future before him. When one twin dies, the other usually follows, unable to face the world without their other half. Those who survive are considered diminished, doomed to succumb to the violent grief that inevitably destroys everyone whose twin has died. Such is the fate of Vi Abernathy, whose twin sister died in infancy. Raised by the anchorites of the temple after her family cast her off, Vi has spent her whole life scheming for a way to escape and live out what’s left of her life in peace. As their sixteenth birthdays approach, Bo and Vi face very different futures—one a life of luxury as the heir to the throne, the other years of backbreaking work as a temple servant. But a long-held secret and the fate of the empire are destined to bring them together in a way they never could have imagined.

| Amazon |
The Diminished
Kaitlyn Sage Patterson

The Diminished is a really slow starter. At first I just wasn’t intrigued enough and I couldn’t understand how Bo and Vi would meet. But then when you realise they’re going to meet it all starts picking up and you’re more invested in the story. I also love how this book had great platonic friendships, and most of the characters were well developed.

I enjoyed the plot of the book. The whole backstory to our characters and also how their lives intersect was really well set up. I also enjoyed that there were lots of political fighting going on for Bo as he’s the heir. There’s not too much of a focus on action in the book, and a lot of the violence is happening off the page and away from our main characters. I’m not sure if this is purposeful by Patterson or whether she just didn’t want to write it that much. But it works well to show that the main characters shy away from violence when they can achieve something non-violently.

The world building is great and you start understanding the twins, and the moon splitting history fairly early on. This was without too much info dumping and was well written. I did think that there were some parts that were repetitive. Such as the not associating with dimmy’s comment made by Vi over and over again. I was getting bored of it being thrown at you that dimmy’s were hated on every page because I got it the first time. What I didn’t seem to get is how people automatically knew when someone was a dimmy as it wasn’t mentioned that they had to be marked or anything.

There’s a few questions that were left which may or may not constitute as plot holes? But then some of my questions weren’t affecting the plot in any way, I’m just very invested in getting the answers. I’m not going to let you know them all because spoilers, but one that is really bugging me is why does Vi randomly get a load of puppies and their mum? Like they’re just there in her room, and we don’t know who owns the dog, or if its like a present for Vi. And it just baffles me that she gets these puppies and there’s not really any explanation. Also, apparently in this world you can date cousins and no one is going to comment on it? I was happy that we had an openly gay character, but come on he’s your cousin?

Overall, I enjoy the book a lot but there were a few parts that were questionable. I hope this will improve with the second in the duology though which I definitely want to read!

POSITIVES

+ Plot

+ World Building

NEGATIVES

– Repetitive

– Random ‘plot’ holes

I received The Diminished by Kaitlyn Sage Patterson from the publisher via Edelweiss. This is an unbiased and honest review