Ava's entire life has been ruled and ruined by the demon in her mind who occasionally controls her actions. She only had one friend, Maggie, and the being destroyed that relationship as well. Now Maggie doesn't want anything to do with her, and when a weird young man tells Maggie that she has to leave the planet with him for her safety, Ava ends up coming along. Things go from bad to worse, and the three of them end up crashing on another planet. In order to save her own life, Ava finally agrees to make a pact with her demon, who says she used to be a queen named Wrathia Bellarmina. Her homeland was destroyed by Titan, and the only plan she could come up with involved cursed wine that would allow her and the most powerful warriors in her empire to die and attach their souls to other hopefully more powerful beings and eventually take back their homeland.

Ava has been a disappointment to Wrathia, up to this point. The pact changes things. But do the warriors Wrathia is looking for really want the same things she does? It's unclear, and she's unaware that several of the people around Ava are likely exactly the ones she's looking for. One of them is with Maggie and is reluctantly helping her with her constant quest for romance with the cutest guy in her vicinity. Another is with a young doctor named Gil...who is unfortunately a devout new member of Titan's army.

I remember reading a bit of this online and being blown away by the vivid colors. Everyone has signature colors, resulting in panels that are often a treat for the eyes. As for the story, well, I still don't really know what's going on. There appear to be at least two or three sides involved here, and it's unclear whether any of them could be considered "good." Then there are characters' personal motivations, which are also occasionally a bit murky. Gil has a full-on "happy cult member" vibe. Maggie recognizes this but ignores it because she thinks he's attractive. And Ava is just...a mess. She literally vomits lava at one point, and those glasses with the leaking tar-like stuff can't possibly be good for her.

Things become downright horrific by the end of the volume, with people getting killed left and right and a truly disturbing sequence in which a person is involuntarily stripped down to their nervous system and rebuilt.

Will I be continuing this series? Yes, probably. The artwork helps make up for the fact that I have no idea what's going on or what to expect. If I'm just as clueless by the end of volume 2, though, that will probably be my stopping point.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )

I’m intrigued by the worldbuilding and just trying to figure out the overall plot. It’s dark and a little unsettling, but it has my interest. Suicide ideation and a cult are a prominent portion of the book ( )