Sanctum

Author: Sarah Fine
Goodreads Rating: 4.67
My Rating: 5 Stars
Pages: 433
Reviewed by: Nicole

"My plan: Get into the city. Get Nadia. Find a way out. Simple."
A week ago, seventeen-year-old Lela Santos's best friend, Nadia, killed herself. Today, thanks to a farewell ritual gone awry, Lela is standing in paradise, looking upon a vast gated city in the distance – hell. No one willingly walks through the Suicide Gates, into a place smothered in darkness and infested with depraved creatures. But Lela isn't just anyone – she's determined to save her best friend's soul, even if it means sacrificing her eternal afterlife.
As Lela struggles to find Nadia, she's captured by the Guards, enormous, not-quite-human creatures that patrol the dark city's endless streets. Their all-too-human leader, Malachi, is unlike them in every way except one: his deadly efficiency. When he meets Lela, Malachi forms his own plan: get her out of the city, even if it means she must leave Nadia behind. Malachi knows something Lela doesn't – the dark city isn't the worst place Lela could end up, and he will stop at nothing to keep her from that fate.

This book was pretty astounding. This was one of those surprise books that my mom grabbed at BEA that I wasn't expecting. I also wasn't expecting Lili to tell me that I had to read it and that it was going to be a great book. Mostly thats because I saw no promotion for this book. For a few reasons, that doesn't surprise me. Number one, some books sneak by and number two, its published by Amazon, and I live in a Barnes & Noble world.

Again, I digress, this book was pretty awesome. I was a little thrown off at the beginning because I didn't really like Lena's tone in the beginning. She was this total tough girl, and it frustrated me because it seemed like she was trying too hard to be tough. I was able to look past that and move forward with the book.

One of the things that I loved about this book was this world that Fine greated. She made a really interesting underworld, and that was what helped to make this book. The best part about not knowing what the afterlife is like is that authors can reinvent it to however they want. In this world, there are Suicide Gates that pull in all the people that killed themselves and then there is the Countryside where, if you died by not killing yourself, you go there. So far we don't know much about the countryside and how you qualify, but that will probably come later.

I kept getting mad at Lena because she was so stubborn about what she sticking by Nadia. I totally understand the loyalty thing, but for me, it just seemed like Nadia was totally undeserving of her loyalty as we got further and further into my book. In fact, Nadia just pissed me off once Lela did find her.

What I really enjoyed was the side Mazikin plot. The Mazikin are these creatures that take over the bodies of the people within the Suicide Gates and then spread their disease and kill the guards. I really liked how things worked for them and it was really interesting. Especially how Malachi responded to them.

I would talk about Malachi, but then I would just be gushing about how great he was. It was a little frustrating at parts, but I liked how it wasn't insta-love. I'm on a crusade against this. Either way, this book was really great and I would for sure check it out if I were you. Totally looking forward to book two, and I would keep your eyes peeled in December for some more Sanctum news!