This review contains some spoilers. Also, it should be noted that I have not read any other book from this author so I may be missing some context which has affected my reading of this book and in turn my review.

When I read the blurb of this book I thought it sounded super interesting. I am very glad I read it as I think if I didn't I would find it hard to initially follow and understand what was going on. The first half of the book feels like Lord of the Flies meets Oliver Twist as we see how the group of orphans interact and cope with being in the caves. I found the dynamics here to be interesting and not knowing who to trust always added an edge of excitement.

The second half lays out how brainwashing takes place and how children can be manipulated to the will of adults.

I did feel as if I was reading the prologue to something as opposed to a fully fleshed-out and finished story in itself.

I really liked our main character, and the fact that he isn't the perfect character, he does at least think about doing things that we might see as morally wrong. I do however wish that his abilities to communicate with animals were explored and used more. I enjoyed the main character's relationships with his "compeers" and the other characters. I found some of the language the author used such as "lessgood" and "doubleplusmostgood" distracting and gave me a reason to pause while reading it. Which in turn took me out of the book. Initially, I thought it was just the orphans who spoke this way maybe because they were young however when the teacher spoke this way I was taken aback.

*SPOILERS*
I felt very let down about the ending. I wouldn't have minded if the escape consisted of the "spirits" leading Brun and Rut-off to the exit of these caves. But to have them fly off on a giant butterfly made after touching a flame/not a flame really felt a bit too convenient for me. I understand he was being helped cos he was a good and loyal friend however it was too convenient.
*SPOILERS*

Overall I liked the book and despite some language which I feel took me out of the book it was an easy read with an intriguing premise, I don't feel it lived up to its potential however I am open to reading another book in this world and learn some more about it and the lore.

I find it sort of difficult to rate this one, because it very much feels like this story belongs into a bigger universe that I know nothing about.
But anyways

The novel was enjoyable. Dark, heavy, laying down the fate of children abducted to become reeducated into a vessel by a dark master. Of dozens, only one can stand through until the end. And so the boy soon dubbed the name of "Halfwit", needs to get through being robbed of his name, of his past, and of his will, to become something he doesn't even know of. Losing friends and companions all along the way.

It was interesting, to see a matter so dark and terrifying told from the perspective of a child, who has known horrors on the streets of his city all his life, but still doesn't know quite how to describe what is happening to and around him.
This story would have been a lot better if not for the odd attempt at a different language system. The words "not" and "more" don't seem to exist, rather replaced by various prefixes like "less-" "doubleplusmost-" "doubleplusless-", which, sure, is interesting, but in the end just comes across as infantile and without an explanation, gets very annoying very quickly.
I would be very interested in reading more about this world, but I don't know whether I can get over the language.

I really wanted to like this book. The blurb was so intriguing but the writing was just poor quality.

There were a ot of grammatical errors to the point where comprehension was difficult. Aside from that , some sentences are poorly constructed e.g. ending a sentence with "I" and starting the next sentence with "I".

I'd recommend the author reads his writing out loud as a check. This would make it easier to see the comprehension difficulties.

The narrator has a very inconsistent voice. Sometimes he sounds like an adult and sometimes he sounds like a child (he's suppose to be 10).

There's also a lot of random words thrown around with capital letters that we don't understand. I'm a bit against needless capitalising anyway but in this case instead of building intrigue it's just confusing. I'd recommend trying to build suspense over one or two ideas rather than throwing it all in there.