review: froi of the exiles

Froi of the Exiles is the second book in the Lumatere Chronicles series by Melina Marchetta. I read the first book, Finnikin of the Rock a couple of months ago and loved it and rated that one 4.6 stars. This one was so much better and scored 4.75 stars from me!

Synopsis from Goodreads (Don't read the synopsis if you haven't read the first book)

Blood sings to blood, Froi . . . Those born last will make the first . . . For Charyn will be barren no more. 
Three years after the curse on Lumatere was lifted, Froi has found his home... Or so he believes...
Fiercely loyal to the Queen and Finnikin, Froi has been trained roughly and lovingly by the Guard sworn to protect the royal family, and has learned to control his quick temper. But when he is sent on a secretive mission to the kingdom of Charyn, nothing could have prepared him for what he finds. Here he encounters a damaged people who are not who they seem, and must unravel both the dark bonds of kinship and the mysteries of a half-mad Princess.
And in this barren and mysterious place, he will discover that there is a song sleeping in his blood, and though Froi would rather not, the time has come to listen.

Plot
Oh my god, where do i even begin. Perhaps with the word "FANTASTIC"? Or perhaps "GENIUS" to describe Melina Marchetta, because that was what I wanted to describe her as I read the book. The first book took a bit of time to get into, but Froi of the Exiles was entertaining from the start (probably because i was already familiar with the characters and the politics). I've forgotten some details and I really appreciate that the characters subtly summarized what had happened in the first book as well. The plot was so twisted with the mystery of past events, prophecies and curses of Charyn. I loved the way we slowly discovered the clues to break the curses and realised the truth about the characters and what had really happened in the past. It was mind-boggling and complex and needed my sole focus, which was very engaging and it felt like an achievement when i finally understood everything.

Writing
Loved it. I love the formal-ish fantasy language, I love how it was told in a 3rd person POV but still managed to grip me into the characters' minds. I love that there were other POV's as well, not just Froi's. We got to read about the events happening at two different places and i rarely found myself bored throughout the entire book. Marchetta was also darn amazing in making us feel attached to the characters. Firstly, i feel protective over the characters because they're so loyal and selfless. Second, I love the characters for their relationship with each other. Marchetta didn't even seem to try too hard to make the relationships(family, friendships, lovers, neighbours) strong.

Characters
WHERE DO I EVEN BEGIN. I LOVE FROI SO MUCH. His character had developed so much and so incredibly from the first book, that I was already impressed within the first few chapters. Little did i know that that was only the beginning of Froi's development and he had grown even more until the end of the book. I love how subtle his changes were as well, and how he also had gone through a lot of internal dilemmas to get to where he was in the end. Ugh, i just love Froi.

The new characters that were introduced were pretty great as well. One of the things i love about Marchetta's books is that you just don't know which characters are gonna play a huge role and which characters are the minor ones. It seems like there are more than 10 main characters in this, and all of them had such complex and incredible backgrounds it's so hard to just not care about them. I SUPER LOVE how strong the women are in this series. Like most fantasy books, the women are still generally looked down upon but having the main ones stand up for themselves and for what they believed in was so great. Also, it's just so refreshing to have such diverse and imperfect characters; plain-looking, mentally-unstable, disabled, egoistic, etc.

All in all, Melina Marchetta absolutely played with my feelings with her complex and twisted plot and her incredible and lovable characters. Even when I was halfway through the book i was already experiencing a lot of feels and it felt like i had already read an entire book's worth of plot twists. This was such an entertaining read and it's one of those books you wanna shout out "WHY AREN'T MORE PEOPLE READING THIS" to the world.