Book Review :: Infinity Son, by Adam Silvera

Infinity Son by Adam Silvera
ISBN: 1471187802
Series: Infinity Cycle #1
Published by HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster
on 2020-01-14
Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy
Pages: 368
Source: HarperCollins NZ, Simon and Schuster
Goodreads

Balancing epic and intensely personal stakes, bestselling author Adam Silvera’s Infinity Son is a gritty, fast-paced adventure about two brothers caught up in a magical war generations in the making.

Growing up in New York, brothers Emil and Brighton always idolized the Spell Walkers—a vigilante group sworn to rid the world of specters. While the Spell Walkers and other celestials are born with powers, specters take them, violently stealing the essence of endangered magical creatures.

Brighton wishes he had a power so he could join the fray. Emil just wants the fighting to stop. The cycle of violence has taken a toll, making it harder for anyone with a power to live peacefully and openly. In this climate of fear, a gang of spectres has been growing bolder by the day.

Then, in a brawl after a protest, Emil manifests a power of his own—one that puts him right at the heart of the conflict and sets him up to be the heroic Spell Walker Brighton always wanted to be.

Brotherhood, love, and loyalty will be put to the test, and no one will escape the fight unscathed.

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My Thoughts on Infinity Son

A world of phoenixes and powers? Yes please! Ever since I read What If It’s Us, by Adam Silvera and Becky Albertalli (my first Silvera book), I’ve added the rest of Silvera’s stories onto my TBR list. While I haven’t got through many at this stage (just aforementioned book, and also They Both Die at the End) I really wanted to see where a fantasy story by this YA author would take us. It did take us places, but not really the places I thought it would.

Infinity Son is definitely a side-step sort of vibe for Silvera, if his past novels are anything to go by. I realise I’ve only read two, but they were both of a similar vein; two characters, figuring out who they are and falling in love. His writing is naaaw-worthy and the sweetest of sweet; they have all the feel-good feelings with raw and heartbreaking threads throughout. But Infinity Son is different. There is barely any romance in it (one of the main characters gets a little bit of the feels right near the end), and it’s mostly focused on this magical power-heavy world that it’s set in. Which is fantastic, it really is, and I think making the romance a minor part of the story (if it’s really there at all?) was actually a good move for the most part, but I was missing those naw moments throughout. Even if they had just been beautiful, heartfelt, moments between friends, or between the brothers, that would have sufficed. Perhaps it was the writing style. It didn’t really gel with me and I struggled a bit with the way the voices came across (all the same, by the way, very hard to differentiate without really noting the chapter titles), so those sweet sentences so prominent in his other stories were lacking.

When you mix New York with magic and phoenixes, there’s the potential for something incredible. Unfortunately I don’t think it quite hit home. The idea was brilliant and I absolutely loved the concept, but I think it fell a little flat in this one. I’m really hopping that in the second book it cranks up a gear in the the setting and magical department. Also the romance.

This may seem like a negative review, but as you can see it’s a 3.5 stars for me. I did actually really enjoy reading it, and once I got past the writing style and the realisation that there would be no batting of eyelashes, heart fluttering moments between characters, or heavens forbid, a kiss, then it was a fun phoenix-filled fantasy story. The second in the Infinity Cycle series doesn’t have a title yet, but by the looks of things it might be release in 2021.

Have you read Infinity Son? What did you think?

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Thank you to Harper Collins NZ for this review copy. While I received the book for free this does not sway my thoughts, and all opinions are my own.