Her freedom could be only a leap away.
The Prison Healer
by Lynette Noni
Genre: YA Fantasy
About: Kiva is a survivor. She's stayed alive in a notoriously deadly prison for ten years. Working as the prison healer she does what she's told and keeps her head down. But when a new prisoner arrives, Kiva is forced to tie her life with that of the dying prisoner. If she dies, they both die. But if she survives... freedom.
The Good
The beginning/set-up for this story was actually pretty good. I thought the prison setting was really well established and Kiva's role as the prison healer was an interesting dynamic. Especially as she was also the Warden's spy. I also liked the inciting incident being the introduction of a new, intriguing prisoner that Kiva needs to heal - it's just that it gets repeated twice, first with Jared arriving, then Tilda.
The Bad
Kiva's character quickly became boring. Every one treats her like they know she's the main character. She's special. She's smart. She's the most amazing person in the room. But what does she actually do? Information and help always comes to her. When the Warden tells her she needs to get better information on the rebel leader, it takes a few short scenes before the rebel leader comes seeking Kiva out, instead of the other way around.
Her internal monologue is very repetitive to the point of ridiculousness. The lines 'We are coming' and 'Don't let her die' are repeated in her head far, far too often. In chapter ten, we get the 'Don't let her die' line thirteen times. And on average those lines were being repeated about five times in any given chapter. It doesn't raise the stakes when the point is being hammered to the reader like this. Also that particular line has even less impact when you discover at the end that the rebel queen was Kiva's mother. Her thought process was given to us as her simply following orders/wanting to do the right thing for her patient; it was not given to us as the very understandable desire to save her own mother's life. While I can understand the need for this twist to come right at the end, it would have given her character a far stronger, more believable motivation if we'd known she was risking her life not for the rebellion or because her family told her, but because it was her mother's life on the line.
The Somewhat Iffy
The trials were so unbelievably boring and really hit home how little Kiva does to alter the course of events. She's saved from the Air trial because of the prince. She's saved from the Fire trial because of the prince's amulet. She's saved from the Water trial, again, because of the prince. And then, big surprise, she's saved from the Earth trial because the prince is with her and he leads them to safety. The trails themselves were also very passive tests. For Air she has to take a leap which was cool, but Fire and Water is her just standing there and Earth is a lot of walking around.
The prison setting was very dark and I liked this, but it also added to Kiva's passivity. This was a world where people were being raped, brutalised and murdered on a daily basis but after ten years as a prisoner she remained relatively unharmed. We don't see anything in her actions that give an explanation on why she'd been protected for so long. The Warden's protection was limited and she had many enemies in the prison. I would have liked to have seen what Kiva actively did to survive - in every scene that she was in danger her survival came from someone saving her.
The only active plot point from Kiva was her figuring out the Warden was poisoning his prisoners. I did like that she worked this out, but I was confused why it was even a big deal. We're told that the Warden executed prisoners on a daily basis and that he had free reign in the prison to do as he liked. He answered to no one. So why did it matter that his mass murdering policies increased?
Jared's reason for being in the prison was terrible. At the very least it would have made sense if he was there to assassinate The Rebel Queen, but for the prince to risk his life and take on hard labour to simply 'interrogate' Tilda made very little sense.
Overall
A cool set-up with terrible execution. The stakes were none existent because Kiva had such obvious main character armour. She never felt in real danger and the motivations of the surrounding characters were extremely forced.