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roaming_enn's review
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
- 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
4.25
"Was safety something anyone could promise, ever? Kalen wasn't sure anymore. Maybe it wasn't a destination. But could they find it by looking out for each other?"
Summary:
After a burglary in which two close friends are caught, they find that in order to save those they love, and to save themselves, they must work together, and with new friends, to partake in a competition to execute a heist at the competition location. Unbeknownst to the other, the two friends are each blaming themselves and believing that the other does not unconditionally appreciate them for who they are. This book has found family, close platonic friendships, wonderfully queer characters, life and death stakes, betrayal, etc.!
Thoughts:
I got a review copy of this book. This is a fast-moving story told from the POV of the two characters, Kalen and Blythe. Kalen's two pronouns, he/them, are used in equal measure, and I thought it worked SO WELL! I honestly don't read a lot of heist books, so this was very refreshing for me! The relationship between the two of them was beautiful! I'm SO GLAD to have read this book! The ending was very satisfying and I don't feel the need for more, but I'd read another book with these characters if the author chooses to write more!
Check the trigger warnings, because there are a lot of them! Some trigger warning highlights: the book begins with a suicide attempt:Kalen is about to jump off a high location and Blythe saves them; this is how they meet. There are MANY scenes PTSD scenes: Kalen has constant flashbacks of being drowned by someone as a kid. And addiction: Kalen feels the need to use a drug to calm those flashbacks. And rape: one character will get raped by someone a little over halfway through the book.
Summary:
After a burglary in which two close friends are caught, they find that in order to save those they love, and to save themselves, they must work together, and with new friends, to partake in a competition to execute a heist at the competition location. Unbeknownst to the other, the two friends are each blaming themselves and believing that the other does not unconditionally appreciate them for who they are. This book has found family, close platonic friendships, wonderfully queer characters, life and death stakes, betrayal, etc.!
Thoughts:
I got a review copy of this book. This is a fast-moving story told from the POV of the two characters, Kalen and Blythe. Kalen's two pronouns, he/them, are used in equal measure, and I thought it worked SO WELL! I honestly don't read a lot of heist books, so this was very refreshing for me! The relationship between the two of them was beautiful! I'm SO GLAD to have read this book! The ending was very satisfying and I don't feel the need for more, but I'd read another book with these characters if the author chooses to write more!
Check the trigger warnings, because there are a lot of them! Some trigger warning highlights: the book begins with a suicide attempt:
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Death, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt
Moderate: Child death, Cursing, Gun violence, Misogyny, Torture, Grief, and Murder
Minor: Kidnapping
raesreadingcorner's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug use, Homophobia, Physical abuse, and Classism
Moderate: Violence and Grief
Minor: Death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail
sophiareads_'s review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Content Warnings: Violence, death (including child death, animal death, death of a parent), suicide attempt, sexual assault, mind control, homophobia, transphobia, restrictive eating
Blythe and Kalen are caught robbing the Governor's mansion and blackmailed into leading a heist against a rival nation to postpone a brewing war.
This sounded so fun - a queer fantasy heist story - but unfortunately it was a real disappointment for me. This book has a major issue with 'tell' over 'show' writing in almost every aspect, which started off a little boring and got exceedingly irritating as it continued. At it's tamest, this manifests as world building being either underdeveloped (elements such as the 'bestowments' people have are really only mentioned in a very surface level way), or are presented with an inelegant info dump. At it's worst, whole scenes are described to us in two or three sentences rather than... like... actually being written.
Early on, we build to our characters overpowering a crew and taking over their boat, and this is, unfathomably, a fade to black? Of the most interesting scene of the book thus far? This was an absolutely bizarre choice. I was baffled and disappointed by this choice, but was going to mostly overlook it UNTIL IT HAPPENED AGAIN. The author goes out of her way not to write the scene of our characters discovering the location of the vault they'll be robbing, by having a POV character poison herself so that neither of our POV characters can be part of the scene that would actually be interesting to read. I don't know how to interpret this, it's such a bad way to write a book.
Speaking of our POV characters, Blythe and Kalen... I tried to like them, but GOD. For at least the first half of the book, both of their internal monologues are constant self deprecation and 'boo hoo this is all my fault I can't believe any of my friends don't hate me' which gets old SOOOOO fast. Blythe is particularly bad about this, especially because these convoluted self hating thought patterns start causing her to act unfathomably stupid. Like, so stupid I am not even starting to buy that a real person would make these choices. She deliberately jeopardises the group's mission because 'oh, I just can't burden them with this problem'. I was rolling my eyes into space.
All these issues in the 85% of the book which is build up to the actual heist and then... it's over in like 15 pages. Talk about anticlimactic. It was a bummer.
It might not sound like it, but this book did have things I liked! The Viper was easily my favourite, she was really cool and a pretty nuanced, multi-faceted character, and I liked her arc. She was definitely the highlight of the book for me. I also thought it was really cool that the main relationship here was a queer platonic relationship between Blythe and Kalen. Unfortunately, their relationship ended up falling a bit flat for me as I got frustrated by their miscommunication and again, thought we were told rather than shown how close they were, but conceptually, I was a fan! This was also the first book I've ever read with a main character who uses multiple (he/they) pronouns. It was a bit of a learning curve getting used to reading that, but it was really cool to see!
I think ultimately this was a case for me of a great concept and a not-so-great execution, unfortunately.
Thanks to the author for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Blythe and Kalen are caught robbing the Governor's mansion and blackmailed into leading a heist against a rival nation to postpone a brewing war.
This sounded so fun - a queer fantasy heist story - but unfortunately it was a real disappointment for me. This book has a major issue with 'tell' over 'show' writing in almost every aspect, which started off a little boring and got exceedingly irritating as it continued. At it's tamest, this manifests as world building being either underdeveloped (elements such as the 'bestowments' people have are really only mentioned in a very surface level way), or are presented with an inelegant info dump. At it's worst, whole scenes are described to us in two or three sentences rather than... like... actually being written.
Early on, we build to our characters overpowering a crew and taking over their boat, and this is, unfathomably, a fade to black? Of the most interesting scene of the book thus far? This was an absolutely bizarre choice. I was baffled and disappointed by this choice, but was going to mostly overlook it UNTIL IT HAPPENED AGAIN. The author goes out of her way not to write the scene of our characters discovering the location of the vault they'll be robbing, by having a POV character poison herself so that neither of our POV characters can be part of the scene that would actually be interesting to read. I don't know how to interpret this, it's such a bad way to write a book.
Speaking of our POV characters, Blythe and Kalen... I tried to like them, but GOD. For at least the first half of the book, both of their internal monologues are constant self deprecation and 'boo hoo this is all my fault I can't believe any of my friends don't hate me' which gets old SOOOOO fast. Blythe is particularly bad about this, especially because these convoluted self hating thought patterns start causing her to act unfathomably stupid. Like, so stupid I am not even starting to buy that a real person would make these choices. She deliberately jeopardises the group's mission because 'oh, I just can't burden them with this problem'. I was rolling my eyes into space.
All these issues in the 85% of the book which is build up to the actual heist and then... it's over in like 15 pages. Talk about anticlimactic. It was a bummer.
It might not sound like it, but this book did have things I liked! The Viper was easily my favourite, she was really cool and a pretty nuanced, multi-faceted character, and I liked her arc. She was definitely the highlight of the book for me. I also thought it was really cool that the main relationship here was a queer platonic relationship between Blythe and Kalen. Unfortunately, their relationship ended up falling a bit flat for me as I got frustrated by their miscommunication and again, thought we were told rather than shown how close they were, but conceptually, I was a fan! This was also the first book I've ever read with a main character who uses multiple (he/they) pronouns. It was a bit of a learning curve getting used to reading that, but it was really cool to see!
I think ultimately this was a case for me of a great concept and a not-so-great execution, unfortunately.
Thanks to the author for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Misogyny, and Violence
Moderate: Eating disorder, Homophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Death of parent
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Transphobia, and War
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