Reviews with content warning for Grief - Natural Outlaws and Fractured Sovereignty

Reviews tagging 'Grief'

Natural Outlaws and Fractured Sovereignty by S.M. Pearce

3 reviews

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.

Content Warnings

raesreadingcorner's review against another edition

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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

remus_reads's review

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emotional hopeful slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

Thank you to the lovely author for sending me an ARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

Overall:

First of all, I loved this book, it was amazing and although there were a few things I didn’t love, I recommend it to everyone who loves dark fantasy and needs more a-spec rep in their books.

I have to be honest with you, when I started this book I thought “Oh god, I’m not gonna like this book but I’ll have to push through cause it’s an ARC.”

That’s where I made the mistake. I’m just too critical in the beginning but, let me tell you, not even TWENTY pages later I COULDN’T put this book down anymore.

I was sucked right into the story and it kept me in its claws right until the end!

Mandatory SoC reference:

Another confession I have to make is that I always fall into the trap of comparing every heist story to Six of Crows.

This book is comparable to Six of Crows in the sense that, if SoC had a younger, softer sibling, it would be this book. The characters try to pull off a heist without brutally murdering everyone that inconveniences them. They are strong characters without being physically the strongest or having otherworldly talents for making plans.

Characters/found family:

I wouldn’t say that this book is without its triggers and it is very much a dark fanyasy, but something about the writing and the characters just had a tenderness to it. I wanted only the best to happen to these characters.

The found family was something that I would put in a blender and drink as a smoothie if I could. It was just perfect and it had ALL of the a-spec rep you could wish for. I mean, this book features the queer-platonic relationship of my dreams and it just makes so much sense that they aren’t romantically involved.

There were instances when I was kind of annoyed by Kalen and Blythe because they had literally the same thoughts and it lead to miscommunication, but when thinking about their past it makes sense that they‘re bad at communicating. Also it got better throughout the book.

Another positive thing I want to mention is that Kaylen uses he/they pronouns and the author changed it up every few pages/sentences. That was very refreshing to see because often times authors will state: „Character x uses he/they pronouns“ but then end up only using one of them.

Plot/pacing:

Although I want to gush over all the things I love I have to mention that the pacing of the plot didn’t quite resonate with me. It was rather slow paced for a heist story and even though I was interested in it, sometimes I seemed to forget the stakes.

Also the only scenes where „ a lot happened“ weren‘t really detailed and felt almost fade to black. This didn‘t take away from my overall enjoyment of the book.

Religion/faith:

Another thing I really loved was the theme of religion throughout the book and coming to terms with not believing in the religion. It seemed likea really healthy way of desling with religion and coming to terms with the fact that religion and faith aren‘t the only important things in life.

I think it showed really well how different people deal with and come to terms with their faith or their believes.

Content Warnings

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