A review by emilynied
The Prison Healer by Lynette Noni

adventurous challenging dark emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

I really did enjoy this book, but like many YA books I've been reading lately, I think I found it a little too YA (actually devasting that I'm growing up and prefer more mature books). I do like the premise and the prison-setting was well developed and interesting to explore. Our main character Kiva is a healer at the prison who tends to the prisoners and the new inmates coming in from the outside world. We follow her story as she treats a new inmate - the Rebel Queen, who has the potential power to overtake the current ruling monarchs and their family. After she receives a note from her family on the outside, she takes the place of the rebel queen in a serious of trials basically destined to kill her. 

I feel like certain circumstances of this book made it feel more YA than it maybe originally intended - for example, for being in the highest security prison in the world it seems, most of the prisoners have a lot of free reign, especially when we're introduced to Jaren. Kiva and Jaren have a lot of time to themselves, when you would think that they would be separated due to their alleged crimes that brought them to Zalindov in the first place.

Kiva also manages to survive each trial and they're only given the span of just a chapter or two to cover each trial - I wish they were given the susense and severity that they were built up to be.

Regardless, this book was a super fast-paced read and I definitely want to see what happens next, especially after that cliff hanger!!