Last year I read The Tale of the Hostage Prince—it was the novella of this series (book 1.5)—and I liked it, even though I often felt clueless about the world system and terms used. Now that I read this book (the first book in the Absolution series), I can easily reminisce the world and everything in The Tale makes sense.

Amok follows Putera Mikal story and struggles to gain the Amok Strength (a supernatural power granted by Kudus to the Mahan royal family).

I liked the world-building, the magic/gift system in every city-state of Terang. The fact that the author used so many Malay terms for the world is fascinating. As an Indonesian, Malay words are basically very akin. However, don't be afraid that you won't understand the terms because the author provides a glossary at the end.

For me, Amok is a story about faith, loyalty, and forgiveness. To hold on to hope in desperation. To keep trusting even in the darkness. To end the revenge cycle. It also got Bible story’s retelling of Samson and Delilah.

I really struggled with reading this book. It was confusing and repetitive at the same time.

I loved the aspects of Malay culture and the setting and and words thrown in (the glossary really helped because I was initially using Google to translate every time I came upon a word I didn’t know), but the characters didn’t feel as well developed as they could have been. And Kudus was my least favorite character when he should’ve been powerful and all-knowing, or whatever we’d expect from a God. This was a faith-based fantasy and maybe I’ve never read a real faith-based fantasy before, but it just didn’t click with me.

Seeing Mikal realize his privilege and come into his power was nice, but being in his head was so annoying. Constantly the same thoughts over and over again. Some other reviews talk about him being whiny, but that didn’t bother me as much as the repeating thoughts in his internal monologue. I didn’t understand why Yosua and his family remained loyal to their oppressors either.

Some of the dialogue in this book was also confusing because I’d forget who was talking. There would be scenes were there were like 5 people in a room and multiple people are speaking back and forth but it isn’t clearly stated who is saying what, so you get a bunch of lines of dialogue and have to go back and figure out who is meant to be speaking.

Thanks, Netgalley and Publisher for the opportunity to read and review! Life got in the way and it took me some time, but every minute spent reading was worth it. I loved the novel! The narrative flows smoothly and easily like a river and the more you swim through the pages, the more engrossed you become with the characters and their unique story of betrayal, courage, faith, friendship and love, The world-building is interesting as it is inspired by Malaysian culture and sprayed with few Biblical elements. Definitely recommend the novel! Amazing read!

The story kept me wanting to know what happened next. Story heats to the point of never losing interest. Highly recommendable.