A Mac's Reviews > Beneath the Citadel

Cassa is an orphan. Her parents died for the rebellion, and she carries the same goals as them. She has several friends who together are a gang of misfits, all trying to stay afloat. Rumors begin spreading about people disappearing after entering the Citadel, which is where the council rules from. Is this Cassa’s chance to continue her family’s rebellion against the Council and their control of the city?

A lot of people have compared this work to Six of Crows, and I can see that there are some similarities. This work is about found family and misfits trying to conduct a heist-like adventure against the established government. However, I personally found this book to be much more enjoyable than Six of Crows.

The characters were extremely diverse in such a realistic, unforced way. Their personalities greatly complimented each other and made it easy to become invested in the fates of these characters. Realistic weaknesses were included as well, making the characters fallible, realistic, and relatable. This work is told from the viewpoint of several characters (five I believe), which was a little difficult to keep track of at first. In fact, that’s probably the main thing I disliked about this work – I think if it had been limited to the viewpoints of two or three characters, it would have been a more streamlined read. This barely detracted from my enjoyment of the work though.

The second and last thing I disliked about this work was that the worldbuilding was a little lackluster. There weren’t meaningful descriptions of the city or the world or anything that really brought this setting to life. The fast pace of the plot and well written characters made it a great read still, but It would have been a perfect read with a bit more worldbuilding.

There were several flashback chapters scattered throughout the work. While I don’t typically enjoy this as it slows the plot down, in this case it only added to the book. The chapters were clearly titled in a way that made it easy to keep track of flashbacks versus current timeline, and their contents greatly added to the depth of the work. They included important background for the plot and for the characters, which made the characters even stronger and better developed than they would have been without these chapters.

This was a strong, standalone book that I highly recommend! Don’t compare it to Six of Crows, just read it and enjoy it as its own book.