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kstrammel's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Death, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, and War
Moderate: Child abuse, Confinement, Deadnaming, Genocide, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Transphobia, Blood, Vomit, Death of parent, and Colonisation
Minor: Infertility, Miscarriage, and Police brutality
eeriekeri's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Child abuse and Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Hate crime, Sexual content, Police brutality, Colonisation, and Classism
Minor: Deadnaming, Genocide, Terminal illness, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Death of parent, Murder, and Pregnancy
bingo_banjo's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Deadnaming, Death, Drug use, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Drug use, Terminal illness, Pregnancy, and Alcohol
sanktxjehan's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
The good: I really liked the characters. There's one point where Wyatt thinks something like "maybe in another life, another universe, things could have been different" and I was like yes I would love an AU of this. They are the sole reason I'm rating this book as high as I am.
(I read this via audiobook, please forgive any typos or misspellings.)
Non-spoilery critiques: The world-building made no sense. I mean, it made sense in that I understood it, but it didn't in that this is a book about faeries and witches living hidden in the human world and it makes absolutely no reference to how human conceptions of faeries and witches are either 1) different from the truth or 2) influenced by actual interactions with faeries and witches. Like. Do human myths about faeries exist? What about witches? Were they developed independently of the real faeries and witches (since faeries and witches only came to the human world like 500 years ago through a portal) or were they based off real interactions? Like, if you're not going to at least reference the established mythos surrounding faeries and witches but instead make up your own thing, why call them faeries and witches at all? It almost feels like the author took the tiktok aesthetic of being a faerie or a witch and tried to turn it into an actual species of being. Who are genetically related, for some reason.
The book does a good job describing the magic of the world so that I understand how it works but not why. Why do witch powers involve tarot and sigils? Did humans steal tarot from the witches? Or did witches discover it in the human world? The book gives me next to nothing about the history of faeries and witches being here. Like, they say faeries and witches have been completely hidden from humans this whole time but someone must have been living on the land the faeries took over, right? Especially since the author does actively point out the colonizing aspect of the faeries coming to Earth. Make it make sense.
The writing overall was pretty weak to me. I don't mean this because of the amount of slang and internet vernacular, I actually didn't mind that too much. It was more weak in a debut author kind of way. The pacing was weird and there many elements that didn't make sense or that I felt weren't built up to/foreshadowed enough. This book was also openly trying to be an oppression metaphor (there's one passage where Wyatt directly compares the plight of witches to that of queer kids (I listened to the audiobook so I can't find the passage) and a part where he thinks about race in the context of faeries but comes to no conclusions about how it interacts with human racism) but I feel like it missed the mark on so many levels. The main one was just...an oversimplification or lack of understanding of how institutionalized systems of oppression work, oddly enough? Like, it was clear from the beginning that something was rotten in the state of Denmark but the characters were overall too trusting of people they shouldn't have trusted. I felt like this should have therefore contained a lot of political intrigue (which I love) and it just...didn't.
Spoilery critiques:
I realize that maybe because this book is YA, it's trying to be an introduction to the concept of police abolition through fantasy for younger readers, but even still, it could have done a much better job at portraying how institutionalized oppression and state violence works, thus making a stronger argument for police abolition, than it did.
Also, it makes no sense that the Guard is the only thing portrayed to be corrupt when they live under a f*cking monarchy! I know monarchy is the predominant form of government in fantasy and that no one, including this book, does a good job of portraying how it's actually a bit more like hereditary fascism than any monarchists want to admit, but to have this book be about oppressive systems of power and then to only come in with an anti-monarchist idea in literally the last five minutes seemed very tone-deaf. ESPECIALLY since they don't really portray how awful and damaging monarchy can be and instead promote the idea that a "good king" can solve all their problems throughout most of the book. Good kings are purely an invention of fantasy. On ne peut pointe régner innocement. No one can reign innocently.
There is also the concept of "fated mates" in this world which I think the author had to have to make the idea that Emyr couldn't/wouldn't marry anyone but Wyatt work, but I really expected that trope to be broken down and critiqued more than it was. Wyatt is so mad about it being bio-essentialist and perfect-baby-making-genetics-based in the beginning but then comes around in the end when it's revealed that some other monarchs are gay and/or can't have kids. Am I the only one who thinks that's not enough? If the cisheteronormative idea of fated mates is so predominant in faerie society, couldn't it be that the monarchs are only able to get away with their "unusual" mates because of the immense privilege of being monarchs? What about normal people who have "unusual" mate situations?
(Also, side note, but with how weird the fated mates shit was and how weird the world-building around faeries and witches was, there were several moments throughout this book where I wondered if this was a converted A/B/O story. So. There's that.)
Finally, it was really weird to me that, in the end, when it's revealed that there are still faeries in Faery, they automatically believe those faeries are bad? I know those faeries hate them for abandoning them on a dying world but...that seems fair right? But instead the main characters (including Briar!) embrace the idea that they're murderous savages? I can only hope that idea is critiqued and disproved in the sequel (which I assume will be a thing given how the book ended) but I can't say I'll read it.
Graphic: Death, Gore, Hate crime, Vomit, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Police brutality
Minor: Sexual content and Sexual harassment
cardboardvox's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Bullying and Gore
Minor: Deadnaming, Drug use, Infertility, Vomit, and Grief
qace90's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Full review closer to release, but seriously y’all better be preordering and recommending this book to your library cuz it’d phenomenal on so many levels! Very queer, very angry, revolution and change and chosen family. How does that not absolutely sell this book??
Full review:
Holy smokes, this book is phenomenal! Wyatt is a trans guy living in the human world but he’s originally for Asalin, the place where Fae and witches have lived since Faery became inhabitable. Witches are the children of fae but they’re treated as lesser as they’re different, different magic and different appearances. After the death of Wyatt’s parents from an accidental fire his magic started, he ended up in Laredo where Nadua found him and brought him home. Nadua, Sunny, and their daughter Briar became his family for the last three years, before Wyatt’s fiancee and crown prince of Asalin shows up to take him home to fulfill the engagement and become king and king.
There are so many truly wonderful things about this book. I loved how queer this whole book is and how diverse the characters were. One of my favorite characters was Jin, who is a nonbinary lesbian. That’s not rep I see often and while they are a secondary character, it still felt so good to see a character self described as a nonbinary lesbian. I also adore the friendship between Wyatt and Briar. They’ve been friends so long that they’re able to communicate silently and Wyatt often describes it as an open door between their thoughts that connects them. I also appreciated seeing them declare their love for one another - normalize best friends saying they love each other! And Emyr! He’s such a good guy with so many good intentions, and his interactions with Wyatt were so layered and full of their shared history and the time they spent apart where they’ve grown individually.
I just honestly love this book so much on so many levels and the characters and the world are all just wonderful. I really hope many people plan to read this because gah it’s phenomenal! And I cannot wait for the sequel, especially after that ending!!
Graphic: Violence
Moderate: Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, and Physical abuse
Minor: Deadnaming, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Sexual violence, and Vomit
- Injury - Blood - Deadnaming (name not revealed, but another character uses it) - Fire - Casual ableism - Sexual harassment - Arrest - PTSD, flashbacks - Misgendering, challenged - Drug use - Protests - Bigotry - Fascism - Explosion - Dissociation (secondary char) - Shock