The Gilded Ones

Every year, all the sixteen-year-old girls must submit to a ceremony to determine if their blood is pure.  Purity means they can marry, have children, and become a part of the community.  If they are found to be impure, a swift death is the best they can hope for.  Deka lives in anticipation and fear of the ceremony day.  Then her worst fears are confirmed when her blood runs gold, the color of impurity.

The men of the village imprison her in a cellar and subject her to torture hoping to discover her true death and rid her impurity from the village.  Girls like Deka don't die like everyone else.  Their bodies can heal and resurrect from almost anything, and the village elders are happy to torture Deka while they harvest the gold from her blood for their own enrichment.  

One day a strange woman appears and gives Deka a choice:  stay in the cellar and endure interminable torture or leave to fight for the emperor's army.  Deka chooses to fight.  Deka and other young women like her are called alaki, and their enhanced stamina and healing abilities make them the only line of defense between Oterra and the nasty death shriek attacks that are plaguing the kingdom.  Despite this, they are reviled by normal humans and called all manner of names and insults.  Even Deka believes she is a demon.  How else could she have these abilities?  

But the more Deka and her new friends fight the death shrieks, the less confident she feels in the righteousness of their cause.  She would do anything to protect her new sisters, but is that what they are really doing?

Oh. My. Goodness.  This book is GOOD!  Namina Forna's debut novel is engaging, thoughtful and nearly perfect.  Deka is a perfectly flawed character who learns and grows through her experiences.  The alaki are a vast nameless force, but Deka's friends are well written and come to life on the page.  The romantic subplot is a very small part of the story, but it is well-integrated.  Forna takes on the traditional patriarchal society and the various means used to prop it up with skill.  This is a book readers will definitely want to discuss, perfect for book clubs.  Recommended for 8th grade and up.  There are some scenes with graphic violence, references to sexual assault that happens off-page, and some profanity towards the end of the book.