Extasia by Claire Legrand – a Review

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Description:
Her name is unimportant.

All you must know is that today she will become one of the four saints of Haven. The elders will mark her and place the red hood on her head. With her sisters, she will stand against the evil power that lives beneath the black mountain–an evil which has already killed nine of her village’s men.

She will tell no one of the white-eyed beasts that follow her. Or the faceless gray women tall as houses. Or the girls she saw kissing in the elm grove.

Today she will be a saint of Haven. She will rid her family of her mother’s shame at last and save her people from destruction. She is not afraid. Are you?

Review:

Extasia by Claire Legrand is a stand-alone YA horror novel. I loved Legrand’s Empirium trilogy, and decided to read this book.  Extasia is set in a dystopian future where a small group of men have created an oppressively patriarchal, abusive power in Haven.  I must add on that after reading the last chapter of this book, I suspect there will be another book from this world.

Amity, our heroine, has waited all her life to be chosen as a saint, and today she will become the 4^th saint of Haven.  She looks forward to stand with her sisters to fight evil; though in this book, evil is indeed the people of Haven. The punishment given to the saints is horrific and terrible, as the elders allow the people beat up the girls during ‘visitations’ based on their hatreds/unhappiness.

Amity has been getting strange vibes, and when two of the other saints convince her to travel to meet the witches, who proclaim that Extasia has been calling her. She begins to see creatures and wraiths; in a short time, she learns spells/magic and becomes very powerful. Is she supposed to protect Haven or are the Elders a cult, betraying and harming the girls?

Amity goes through a journey that changes her drastically; she begins to question what the Elders have done, and why are women always hurt, blamed and punished; and the men are allowed everything. Very heartbreaking. As Amity’s powers continue to grow, she tries to understand what she sees in ghost appearances, learning spells from the witches, and trying to stop all the vicious murders in Haven; but she knows that the lies the Elders used on them needed to be stopped, and perhaps the Devil is truly the safe one.

I liked when the 4 saints changed their names in the book created by the witches; Amity became Rage, Mercy became Vengeance, Silence became Sorrow, and Blessing (her sister) became Hunger.  The girls were great characters, especially Blessing and Silence; and I did admire many of the witches, even though they were murderers.  Amity had a boyfriend (really best friend), Samuel, who was nice and loyal to her. 

Extasia was a very dark and violent story line. I did not know what to expect when I started this book, but surprisingly, Claire Legrand managed to pull me in from the start and despite all the evil, I ended up really liking this book.  This is a difficult review to write, as saying too much more would be spoilers; you really need to read this to understand it all.

Reviewed by Barb

Copy provided by Publisher