Hi friends,

Today we are already halfway through our Best Reads of  2020 and it’s time to talk about world building.

I think that the care an author puts into her world building plays a big part in me enjoying my read.

Some world are so vivid and original that they feel like a characters itself. 

Many authors did a great job this year like Sarah J Maas with Crescent city, where angels exist alongside smartphones.

Or even These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong as she made me see the 1920ies Shanghai

But my two winners today, the ones that impressed me so much are :

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

I was truly awed by imagining that school for witches that looked like a living things, with demons lurking in every corners.

The map we got in the book is truly detailed!

If you love an amazing world building and a unique magic system, you’ll be in heaven!
The title could not be better chosen as the school is literally feeding on its students! You either survive and make it to graduation or either die!

The magic system was unique.
You have maleficers mostly taking their power from malia, dark magic you get while killing living things, very powerful but slowly rotting you from the inside out.
Opposite to malia, you have the mana. It’s like white magic that you build to cast spells. You can gather it while killing mal (when you are Orion) or when you do pushups and crochet when you are Galadriel. Kind of exhausting right? But nothing worthy come cheap.

“Was I starting to feel evil? Yes. Now I was worrying I’d be turned to the dark side by too much crochet.”

And my second winner is Fable by Adrienne Young

If the world is not as intricate as A deadly Education, it was still so vivid that it became a part of the story.

Aside for gem sage, people “hearing” gem stones talking to them I truly loved how Adrienne Young depicted the sea, the fishermen, the ships. I could also see the haven Ceros as if I was walking its streets with the slums, the haven, the merchants, the fishermen, taverns etc.  I was breathing salty air or riding  storms while reading. The sea became a character. That’s how fantastic Adrienne’s writing and world building was.

What read had an amazing world building for you this year?

Thanks for reading!

Sophie