Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of Foretold!
Foretold was a fun book to dive into. As someone who struggles with their own mental health, it was a refreshing (if at times painful) representation of how difficult a condition like OCD is to live with and Lumani does an excellent job at never letting us forget what Cassandra is going through. Her writing shines when she pulls us into Cassandra's head, reminding us again and again of that fear, that catastrophic thinking.
For me, Foretold reminds me a little of Percy Jackson. With ‘Cassandra’ and the scryers it's hard not to notice the influence of Greek myth. Combine this with an underground world, a summer camp - however fake it might be - and a final quest and the comparison becomes apparent. That being said, Foretold is not a Percy Jackson rip off, the plot twists, the trauma, and the characters are all unique and wonderful in themselves.
I spoke already about how much I liked Cassandra. While she might not be the happiest protagonist, her pain and her suffering make sense in context. And unlike some YA fiction girls, she's not all sad all the time - a trap that a lot of YA Protagonists fall into. Cassandra is influenced by her OCD, always on the lookout for disaster; she's caught up by the trauma of losing her mother and her desperate need to save Colin, but anxiety isn't the only emotion we see from her. Throughout the novel Cassandra is kind, she's funny, she makes you empathise for her plight. The relationships she builds with her friends and mentors feel genuine, and you're happy for her to have found a place where she belongs.
Speaking of her friends, I enjoyed them immensely. All too often, the friends of a protagonist feel washed down and out. There were times, especially in the beginning, where Griffin and Regan felt like cardboard cutouts; here's the funny chatterbox, here's the school bully, but the more we got to know them the more engaged I became. Griffin and Regan's constant banter reminded me of my own friend group, and that only made me like them more. Seeing them support Cassandra, through her failings and her triumphs, no matter what she was going through, reminded me of what friends are for.
And then there's Colin. Throughout the novel, I wanted to learn more about him. This is where I think Lumani fell short. In trying to sell a fairytale romance, she reduced him to a bland, perfect prince. His troubles felt trivial compared to Cassandra's, though I don't mean to undermine him, and especially in the first half of the novel I found him painfully flawless. It wasn't that I disliked Colin, just that every time he appeared I felt like Lumani was forcing me to love him. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed that there was little time put into love triangles and a messy romance (the bane of any YA novel) but I would have liked to learn a little more about Colin, glimpsed at what secrets he might be hiding.
That being said, his sections were a breath of fresh air in a novel where tension never quite disappears. At its core, I would say Foretold is a story about grief. Like many YA novels, it's a coming of age story but it's also one saturated with the loss of a parent, the loss of an 'unbroken' brain. A disorder like OCD doesn't make you broken, but I understood Cassandra's struggle with it, her mourning of a 'normal' life. Being different often leaves you lonely, and that loneliness is painful to live with. It's no surprise to me that Cassandra latched onto her identity as a scryer when she found out about her gifts, the chance to settle into a new normal.
There were times throughout the novel where the pace felt sluggish, other times where it raced ahead, but I don't think it was a bad book. In fact, for a YA audience, I think Foretold is an important read. Even now, in 2021, it's difficult to find YA protagonists with mental health issues who still get to go on fantastical adventures without being magically cured. Disabled people deserve escapism that includes them too and Foretold does an excellent job showing us the difficulties that come with OCD while also giving Cassandra a gift and powers that most teens can only dream of.
Overall, I enjoyed Foretold. It's definitely a book I would recommend to a friend or family member, even if they weren't a YA themselves. I look forward to a chance to read the sequel when it comes out!
