Carve the Mark by Veronica Roth Review

Hi guys,

Today I will be reviewing Carve the Mark by Veronica Roth.

Overall I thought this was a really good book. I really enjoyed the characters and their dynamics, although sometimes the relationships between them felt fake which is disappointing. Roth has a way of writing that has a way of explaining things really well and not boring you in the process. There were one or two times when I want sure exactly what was going on but that could've been a fault of my own when I didn't read close enough. Roth is also the master of evil brothers as seen in her other novels (tehehe). The plot was captivating and refreshing, I haven't read a real sci-fi in a while so this was nice. I thought that the ending wasnt completely satisfying but it worked well enough. Now lets get down to the controversy. So if you didn't know, there is a big controversy around this book. And don't feel bad about it, I didn't know about while I was reading it, it just showed up in a review I was reading about it and I looked it up and it is a big deal to some people. The controversial aspect is that people believe that it is racist because of the two different cultures portrayed in the novel that are at war. Thuvesits, the lighter skinned people, are said by people to be representative western people and the Shotets, the darker skinned people, are said by people to be representative of Arabic/Islamic people. The belief that this is a controversy immediately repulsed me, and before you click off, here's why. Before knowing Roths intentions for the aspects of these people that relate to the modern society, I believed that Roth could have made it this way to display the discrepancies in our society. You can't get angry at fiction because it is unopinionated, fake, fiction. I can draw a ridiculous comparison to Lord of the Flies by William Goulding. This controversy is like saying that Lord of the Flies is oppressive of Christianity because Simon represents Jesus and peace and he is killed by the other boys. When really this is not the personal opinion of Goulding but of the world at the time because this book is a microcosm of the world during WWII. So I thought that it was ridiculous, not that I am anti-Muslim in any way, but because people were personally attacking Veronica Roth because she wrote this. This, if done on purpose, is not an opinion of her, but the world as a whole at this point in time. Even so, Veronica Roth answered these allegations, so if you would like to see her responses to these allegations, click HERE