Reviews with content warning for Vomit - Godslayers

Sona would NEVER come to love Enyo of her own volition, for the same reason that she never came to love anybody in her 7-8 years at the academy: they all actively support Godolia’s tyranny and imperialism, while Sona’s character is built around her hatred and resistance of these qualities. Enyo is one of those active supporters, when he’s literally in the best position possible to enact change. I get that Enyo is a scared kid, and there is a lot of time spent in this book showing how these characters are just kids having to make impossible choices, so I’m not trying to condemn or not condemn him as a person. I am making the point that while Sona might see herself in Enyo, or come to understand him, she wouldn’t love someone who made the choices he did, and CERTAINLY not to the level that she loves her family and Eris. It conflicts with the core of her character, solidly established in the first book. Making Sona love Enyo felt like a lazy writing choice so that there was a reason why Enyo didn’t die in the first half, thus giving this book its existence.

The brainwashing trope was not done well here.

What triggered Sona’s proper break in her corruption? Why was she not confused over what was real and what she could trust seeing as either side was telling her the other side was corrupting her? Why do we not get more of a reaction from Sona over having had her worst nightmare come true? Where is her panic over what’s been happening to her family, her desperation over seeing them?

Ironically, there is a deus ex machina element of this book.

It was way too convenient that a whole contingency of mechas who had escaped Godolia and were hiding out were discovered in this book, providing the perfect force with which to rebel against Godolia. It would not have been hard to foreshadow their existence in the first instalment.

The world-building was again a bit naff. We were still lacking the bigger picture and the cultural element that I wanted to see, as explained in my review of Gearbreakers.

The issue I had plot-wise with the latter part of Gearbreakers unfortunately characterised the whole plot of Godslayers. It was a bit too predictable, a bit too repetitive to be engaging, especially with the litany of other issues I had with the book.

Something about the writing style didn’t click for me this time around. It felt like the tense would chance mid-sentence and I would often get confused about what was meant by the author. However, I still loved how emotionally raw the prose was, as it could realistically depict teenagers facing a dystopian world.

This is a lot of negatives, I know. 2.75 stars may be a confusing rating to give it, but there were 3-4 elements which pulled through. The first being the romance, which was still written fantastically. Mikuta also nailed the found family element with her scenes of domesticity. The mecha fights were again strong; I especially loved reading the underwater mecha fight as this was something I hadn’t seen before. Finally, even though she was a bit stagnant in terms of development, Eris was still an interesting character to read from and I still fully felt for her.

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zoiejanelle's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective tense slow-paced

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

4.0

(Praying the author never reads this review because I desperately want to be friends with her, but I’m going to be honest here!)
Godslayers pales in comparison to Gearbreakers, but was overall a good book that brought much more depth to the overarching conflicts in the series. The main reason this book isn’t a 5/5 for me is the middle… it is just so slow… which I understand. This series is, at its core, about war, and war can be excruciatingly boring. I didn’t experience the same sort of thrill that I got from book 1. The payoff, though, was worth it!
I also got lost in Mikuta’s writing. In book 1, the poetic style was charming, romantic. In this book I was confused and had to re-read several very important passages to understand what was going on. I totally understood the point of the style. It lends itself to allowing the reader to have startling, emotional realizations and experience what the characters were experiencing through sensory detail, but I’m dumb and need action scenes to be very clear or I can’t visualize the scene.
As for the good stuff…
This book explored more of Jenny’s character as well as Eris’s crew which was really fun. I also loved the new characters — especially Enyo — and reading how they interacted with our original cast. The twists and turns were great, and I must have said “oh, shit!” at least ten times (especially towards the end). I was very scared that this would be an ambiguous ending, and in some ways it was, but please rest assured this is a hopeful ending and provided the much-deserved closure our characters needed. I still highly recommend this series and it will hold a very special place in my heart for years to come.

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spaceofspades's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful 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? Yes

4.75

I loved this conclusion to the duology!

except for the character deaths and betrayal :(

the found family vibes were great, even if it doesn’t center on more than 2 PoV characters. like with Gearbreakers, I enjoyed learning about the world

and just seeing Eris and Sona together

. a great read overall!

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melaniereadsbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous 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? Yes

4.75

Thank you to Netgalley and Fiercereads for the arc of this book.

After the victory--and devastating loss--at the end of Gearbreakers, Sona has been corrupted into thinking she hates the Gearbreakers, and Eris is stuck in Godolia prison. But Sona's corruption doesn't stick the way Enyo is hoping it will, and Jenny and Eris have big plans.

This book!!! Was heartbreaking, first of all. Like, how dare you do that to my precious babies?! But also it is so good! And honestly the perfect ending to this duology and I couldn't ask for a better conclusion within the realm of believability for this world.

The continued world-building and character development in this book was so good I love Sona and Eris so much and I feel like they changed so much in this book but I still love them. A little older, a little less feral, but still determined and fierce and loving and hopeful, always hopeful.

The hope and change and resilience of the characters in this book is so important. It is so good. I think it's the core of what this book is about. I love it so much. I will always recommend this duology to everyone.

Go read it now!

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