Review of Gates of Thread and Stone by Lori M. Lee

Title/Author: Gates of Thread and Stone (Gates of Thread and Stone #1) by Lori M. Lee
Publisher/Date published: Skyscrape, August 5th 2014
How I got this book: received it from the publisher through NetGalley
Buy this book at: The Book Depository

Goodreads summary: In the Labyrinth, we had a saying: keep silent, keep still, keep safe.

In a city of walls and secrets, where only one man is supposed to possess magic, seventeen-year-old Kai struggles to keep hidden her own secret — she can manipulate the threads of time. When Kai was eight, she was found by Reev on the riverbank, and her “brother” has taken care of her ever since. Kai doesn’t know where her ability comes from — or where she came from. All that matters is that she and Reev stay together, and maybe one day move out of the freight container they call home, away from the metal walls of the Labyrinth. Kai’s only friend is Avan, the shopkeeper’s son with the scandalous reputation that both frightens and intrigues her.

Then Reev disappears. When keeping silent and safe means losing him forever, Kai vows to do whatever it takes to find him. She will leave the only home she’s ever known and risk getting caught up in a revolution centuries in the making. But to save Reev, Kai must unravel the threads of her past and face shocking truths about her brother, her friendship with Avan, and her unique power.

So this has been on my radar for a while. I have to admit that I thought it was something mythology-related at first, but it turns out to be a really interesting fantasy type novel (I think it's fantasy at least).

I had a bit of a rocky start with Gates of Thread and Stone, because, while I immediately really liked Kai and everything seems really interested, I was pretty clueless about what exactly my setting was. I mean, I'm not a fan of the info-dump thing at all, but I could have really done with a little more information about how this world works and some more about their leader and the history of this place and just EVERYTHING. I was feeling a bit helpless and grasping at straws to try and understand how this story fits into the bigger picture. Towards the ending, some of my questions have been answered, but definitely not all. But I do feel that I have a better grasp on how things work. I was actually wondering if I had somehow skipped pages and missed the part where things are explained at first, but I checked back and I hadn't. But after a while, I decided to work with it, but it did prevent me from just going with the flow of the story, cause I couldn't place things, you know what I mean?

Anyway. Like I said, I did really like Kai. She's determined and loyal and strong and I liked that. She had a really strong bond with her 'brother' Reev and would do anything for him and it's logical when you think about how it's been them against the rest of the world for years. It's right. I also liked how she kept getting distracted by Avan and would tell herself that this really wasn't the time to be thinking of him like that with her brother missing. Obviously, you can't ignore those butterflies forever, but she did have the good sense to realise that it was really not a good time right then.

I'm not much of a fan of Reev himself sadly, while he seems like a good guy, I didn't get much of a feel for him as a person before he went missing. I did however really like Avan. He's a complicated character and I'm not entirely sure of his age and if I should be thinking that he's a pervert for the whole flirting with Kai thing, but I'm going to believe the best of him here and say he's not that much older than she is. But it's not mentioned anywhere and that always bugs me. But he's definitely a good guy, looking out for Kai and he's got some serious secrets of his own.

So there's a lot of build-up and I got tiny pieces of the bigger puzzle and then BOOM there's the big reveal and it was AWESOME! I mean, seriously, it was really good and it made me even more interested in finding out more about how the system with their gods works and how everything fits together and what the heck is going on with some of these characters and what it will mean for the future and OMG I did totally predict the final twist, but it's one that I can definitely be ok with.

I really liked Gates of Thread and Stone with its twisty plot! But it would have been even better if I'd gotten a little more information in the first part of the novel.

My rating: 3,5 stars