If you guys followed me here from my last blog, The Book Was Better, then you’ll know that this was one of my most highly anticipated books for 2025.
It has all of the ingredients that I usually love, but after finishing it last night, I’m still not entirely sure how to feel about it.
The premise
Blackwood Academy is a magical boarding school in purgatory, set on the outskirts of the afterlife.
Every ten years, six students are chosen to compete in the Decennial, a dangerous set of trials that offers its sole winner either access to their full magic and become Ascended, or the only escape from purgatory into The Other Side.
Wren, August, Irene, Masika, Olivier and Emilio all enter with different motives, but the competition forces them to confront loyalties, rivalries and secrets they would rather keep buried.
My spoiler-free review of Immortal Consequences by I.V. Marie:
I always try to be kinder to debuts, because I think being an author and putting your work out there is so incredibly brave. I imagine it’s like offering your heart to the world and saying, “Here it is, go ahead and stomp all over it if you like”. I can’t even show my face on BookTok or Booksta yet!
However, I also promised to always be honest in my reviews, and so honest I shall be.
I blame my disappointment with Immortal Consequences on its marketing. The romance is described as rivals to lovers, but the characters are flirting on page 1. That sounds like an exaggeration, but I promise you it’s not. Literally page 1. The Decennial itself doesn’t begin until about 100 pages in, which made the early chapters feel really slow, and I kept thinking, What is the point in what I’m reading right now? It didn’t feel important, especially given what the blurb had set up.
The story is told across six POVs, which is incredibly ambitious, but for a relatively short novel, it meant we were switching characters so fast that I just didn’t get the chance to connect with any of them. And, as I’ve said countless times before, characters and my emotional connection to them can make or break a novel for me!
Another part I struggled with was the stakes. They were just so so low, and it was really difficult to get invested in the plot. If I don’t have a character to truly root for, I need a thrilling plot… I had neither, unfortunately, and I contemplated DNF’ing this a few times. However, there was a plot twist about 70% of the way through that increased the stakes dramatically, and this book got SO much better from this point onwards.
I honestly think holding this information back from the reader, especially for so long, was to the detriment of the novel. If it had been revealed sooner, the book would’ve been so much more enjoyable.
However, following the plot twist, the last 30% of the book was riveting and I absolutely loved it!! It wasn’t quite enough to make up for the first 70% of the book, but it was enough to improve my feelings about it as a whole. The prose was good throughout, too, slightly poetic but not purpley, and the action scenes in particular were very well written.
The world itself is fun. Blackwood Academy has this eerie, sort of liminal quality that sets it apart from other dark academia settings, and the themes around regret and memory gave the book some slightly deeper moments.
Final thoughts on Immortal Consequences by I.V. Marie
Immortal Consequences wasn’t the experience I’d hoped it would be, but the final third was so strong that I will definitely continue with the series.
I recommend it to people who love YA fantasy and multi-POV stories. Unfortunately, I just don’t think it was for me.
★★★☆☆
Rating: 3/5
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