This book is a fascinating take on the child war hero trope - as this book takes place AFTER the war has ended and these children war veterans attempting to live civilian life. It forces us to consider what happens to these characters after we leave them when the conflict is over, and consider the morality of using children this young for these purposes.

These children war heroes are called “kindlings,” who have been trained since they were taken from their families at around the age of 5, to use magic and weapons connected to this magic. However, the use of this magic directly drains years from their lives - which is why such young children are used for this purpose. In this way, we have 12 year old children fighting on the battlefield, and many of these fighters do not live to the age of 18. However, with the war ended - many of these children have difficulty adjusting to civilian life, when they had never expected to have lives to live to begin with.

This book is told through the perspectives of all 7 characters in this story, and through their eyes we can put together a bigger picture of all the aspects of war life these children lived through.

Reading this novel took some quick adjustment, as every chapter is told through second person POV, where the characters refer to themselves as “I,” and we, the reader, are living directly inside their head, with the only information available that they themselves know. This grew on me, as I found it to be a very interesting narrative choice to really see the thoughts behind each character, and the reasoning for their auctions.

The main plot of this novel is these 7 characters working together to try to save a village from being attacked and pillaged in a month’s time. This gives us both a deadline to show the severity of the situation, as well as gives them all time to get to know each other, as well as the villagers themselves. It allows these children trained for war to have a taste of regular civilian life, and give them the chance to recover from the trauma they’ve seen - while also putting their unique skills to use to protect these people from further violence.

If you like fantasy books that turn well-known tropes on their head and force the reader to consider the less-than-stellar implications of those same tropes - I would suggest picking up this book. It’s visceral in places, and once the violence kicks off you won’t be sure who will survive until the end.