“She became her own knight; she collected those broken promises and whispered apologies and fashioned them into armor.”
You know that feeling, where your book ends, but it ends in such a way that it’s all a blur of action and emotion and you have to… take a step back and think ”whoa whoa whoa what just happened?” And then you reread the last chapter in its entirety and just sit there and stare at the wall?
Just me?
Well.
The Hearts We Sold is the second book that I’ve read by Emily Lloyd-Jones and while I didn’t quite like it as much as The Bone Houses, this book certainly has its merits in the creep factor, spunky leads, and heartstrings pulling.
The Hearts We Sold follows a world where demons have come forward into mainstream society and offers those desperate enough a wish in exchange for a body part. Arms for riches, legs for beauty, whatever the price demands. Enter Dee. Dee is busting her ass putting herself through private school, but still coming up short. So she turns to her last resort; a deal with the devil. She trades her heart and two years of servitude to a demon who’s put together a rag tag group of teenagers with the sole purpose of keeping the earth safe.
There was so much I loved. The world-building was simple and effective, with just enough specificity to make you truly envision a world in which a missing limb is treated with immediate speculation. The way this society has just accepted it as fact is so interesting to see as well.
DEE. Dee is amazing. She is trying really hard to better herself after a homelife of abuse and neglect. Her scenes with her parents are both chilling and exhilarating. You understand why she makes the impossible deal. You get her deep seated desire to be better than her parents. Everything about her, you absolutely buy.
The romance between Dee and James is also done fantastically. There is no real instalove here. Their bond is slowly built and cemented through the chapters. And while I wish we could see more of the two of them together, they were perfect. Emily Lloyd Jones really knows how to write her romance.
Saying that, I did think that several other characters were criminally underdeveloped. Cora, in particular was a bummer because you don’t cultivate a sympathy for Cora. I didn’t really see the point in her character to begin with and her motives and the consequences of her actions… they were never resolved well enough that I felt anything for her. Cal as well, we don’t really get to know him enough to truly have an emotional impact with his scenes.
I wish the plot had gone deeper into… everything. Dee’s character arc was done supremely well, but everything was in the shadow of Dee. I would have loved more missions/team bonding. And I would have loved to know more about Daemon/other teams.
At the end of the book, I am left with questions that I do wish had been resolved, but I am also left with a bittersweet hope for Dee in her future.
I’m weirdly attached to her now and want so much for her.
4/5
Chill With Jill 