Review by ahlisa - We Rule the Night

Did not finish book.

I sampled this on Amazon. The prose is solid and I liked Linne, but a few things:

Given the state of the world in 2024 I don't particularly feel good about reading a steampunk Russian army fighting bad guys for a nebulous cause. I saw no indication from the reviews that this book makes any attempt to critique the violent cost of war on both sides so I don't feel too optimistic about that.
The first chapter was a lot of worldbuilding thrown at my head all at once and it left a bit of a weird taste in my mouth. Starless was like this too, though, and I ended up loving it, hence why I don't fully hold this against it.
I'm almost 30 and just don't have as much patience for YA as I used to, even YA with solid prose and an interesting premise like this.
Maybe due to the above I also have a bit less patience for overly complex worlds with a lot of rules. Steampunk is one thing but steampunk and also magic is a bit too much for my brain to wrap around.

Basically it's not quite my cup of tea right now but I might come back around to it in the future. Just not anytime soon.