A Golden Fury by Samantha Cohoe | Book Review
I was sent an Uncorrected Bound Manuscript from the author herself, so thank you Samantha Cohoe!
My Rating: 3.5 / 5 🌟
When I first heard about A Golden Fury, all I had expected was nothing more than a simple story about a girl and her experience with alchemy.
And boy, how wrong was I to underestimate this book.
At its core, A Golden Fury is a story about how the main character, Thea Hope was to achieve the biggest dream and desire of all alchemists – to create the Philosopher’s Stone – and how such an achievement may cause her to lose her sanity. And while that is the main plotline, the story has so much more elements to it than it leads you to believe.
One of the first aspect that grasp my attention from the start was its transportive writing. With a historical period as its setting, Samantha did a fantastic job with immersing the readers into the era. Her way of storytelling added a sort of classic and Victorian feel to the story that truly captures the surroundings of the book. Another thing I want to point out is the dialogue that was used in the book which I find to be well done in respect of that era. Although I don’t read much historical fiction, I did not find the dialogue to be odd or out of place, instead I find it to be natural and a subconscious reminder of the setting of the story.
One aspect that I do have mixed feelings about are the characters, more specifically the amount of characters that were involved in this book. Samantha wrote a lot of characters to be in the story which I think was the downfall of this aspect. Considering how short this book is, it did not allow a lot of room to flesh out the characters except for a few main characters. Although I did not hate any of the characters in this book, I could not connect much with them either since we only manage to scratch the surface level of who they truly are.
Another detail I do want to point out was the involvement of different cultures and religions in the book on the topic of alchemy. Granted, I don’t know anything about alchemy to know how accurate the book’s portrayal of alchemy is, but I do appreciate the different religions and cultures that were included in the story such as the usage of Arabic scripts.
Since the story is set in Europe during the year 1792, the book does not shy away from the status of woman during that era. With a female main character, it is no surprise that the theme of feminism was included in this book, and yet the theme was well used throughout the story. In the book, being an alchemist was perceived as a low ranked occupation, much less if a woman was one. While this provided an opportunity for Samantha to include the theme of feminism with a chance of it being overused, she managed to handle this narrative smoothly. Our main character, Thea Hope, manages to come off as a strong female character on her own by fully using her wit and knowledge, and not by downgrading the male characters to showcase her ability.
My only complaint is the overloaded number of elements that were incorporated in the book. While it did help to create a fast-pace story, the excessive elements did become a bit too much for me at times. I don’t necessarily think too many elements is a bad thing, but with how short this book is, it felt a bit overambitious. Nevertheless, it did not take much of my enjoyment away from reading the book and I do believe some people might appreciate this aspect more than I did.
All in all, I had a really enjoyable time reading A Golden Fury. This book brought something different and fresh into the YA genre and I think that reason itself makes it worth the read. With A Golden Fury as her debut novel, Samantha Cohoe has successfully solidified herself in the world of YA and I look forward to reading more of her works in the future. If you’re looking for a short yet refreshing story featuring a fantastic and witty female character during the historical period, A Golden Fury might just be the book for you.
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