The Goddesses Life and Death have begun a Game. They have given you exactly ten years to build your city. If your society has been irresponsible, then Death has won the Game. And every man, woman, and child shall be slain.
This was WILD and I really enjoyed it!
Elysium Girls is about a Game between the goddesses Life and Death in a small walled city called Elysium. One day a dust storm came in and cut Elysium off from the rest of the world and they are told they have ten years to build their civilization up to be judged as to whether Life or Death is the winner. If Life wins, they are free to join the outside world once more but if Death wins they all die. Sal is a girl living in the city, never fitting in but always wanting a purpose. When she is named Successor to the powerful witch in charge, she jumps at the chance to prove herself. Meanwhile Asa is a human obsessed demon in disguise who has been sent to Elysium. Together Sal and Asa make a mistake that leads them to be banished from Elysium, out into the deadly desert.
My summary is long as HECK because this book is seriously wild and it’s so hard to explain what it’s about. This book is really: Mad Max meets girl squad of witches and I live by that. I know nothing these days is super original and unique but she’s very gorgeous to me and I haven’t read anything like this is a very long time and I have to stan.
It was such a different mix of things but it just all worked together so nicely?? There were some moments with the writing that was a little choppy and awkward but this is a debut and it’s pretty good for one in my opinion.
So much stuff oh my god. Witches, magic, daemons, goddesses, mechanical horses, deadly dust storms, raiders and cannibals, giant soldiers made from dust, dangerous desert, a mysterious sickness, beautiful diversity, a walled city cut off from the rest of the world in 1930s Oklahoma!! Go OFF ma’am.
This book was fast and I can support that as I’ve been in a reading slump for months and reading myself (vs listening to an audiobook) would take me forever but I blasted through this baddie pretty quickly. Love to see that.
There were parts where the pacing was a little slow and I wanted it to hurry up but I loved the extra time to flesh out all of these different badass female characters. The first half of the book is good, mostly set up but the second half when Sal is in the desert and meets the squad? *Chef’s kiss*.
I loved every single one of those girls and I loved seeing their different powers, teamwork, and all around literally just a squad of girls supporting girls while kicking ass.
The part that denies me from giving this five stars is that I wanted more romance and for a wlw book, it felt like there was more hetero romance in the spotlight. I really loved Asa and Olivia’s romance but I just wanted more romance with Sal and Lucy. Sure they were cute as all hell but it was so small and minor it could be cut from the book and nothing would change, and it just made me sad because I came into this book wanting wlw and it just felt like a tease.
The magic system was really interesting and cool but I had wished Sal trained longer because she really didn’t seem to know what she was doing for the entire book. It was a bit underwhelming in that regard. I guess I just personally wanted more flash and dramatic magic from her instead of… just throw some seashell dust and hope it does something. Sal was a good enough main character but because there were so many other interesting characters, I kind of wish they were the main character instead.
But I still really enjoyed this book and I liked how fast and exciting it was. I absolutely love the cover and I love how this is a standalone as well. (Next time make girls kith and you get five stars.)
the book berrie 