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zimmerlemon's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
3.75
Really got going from part 2 onwards. The world building took a sec for me to get a hang of but it was genuinely pretty unique which was a nice change of pace lol. I appreciate the setup for a sequel without a devastating cliffhanger. Characters won me over well enough to keep going but mostly for the tropes more so than the actual characters. Some of the oppression/racism metaphor(? Not sure what to call it) was a little heavy handed but I can’t be mad about it when it’s well intentioned and correct. Definitely curious to see what the sequel will have to offer!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Violence, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Hate crime and Racism
amylynnknitsreads's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
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
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Hate crime, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Classism, Death, Blood, Death of parent, Infidelity, and Murder
aneverbird's review against another edition
CW for extremist nationalist organizations sorry but a white person writing about a Black MC in a world where there's an obvious 3 kay allegory is not it for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Religious bigotry, Racism, and Xenophobia
tallismarlowe's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
tense
fast-paced
- 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
I fell a little in love with the main character a few pages in, and stayed that way until the end of the book. The character dynamics are the highlight of this book, at least for me, and they're not always easy ones. The worldbuilding is good in this one; it never sacrificed plot pacing to infodump, but wove it into the narrative instead. I could see the landscapes and characters in front of me as I read. Pretty sure I finished this in two sittings.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Hate crime, Medical content, Violence, and Xenophobia
dariusmortee's review against another edition
adventurous
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? Yes
4.5
I had a hard time starting this book. I couldn’t really get into it that easy, but when I did fall into the story it was an amazing ride.
I am personally a non native reader and that was why I had trouble starting this book. The words and sentence building used weren’t familiar to me, which made it harder to understand what was written. I wouldn’t recommend this book to someone who just started reading in English as a non native speaker.
Besides that, this book has a lot of diversity, fun characters and a good plot!
So far I noticed pansexual representation, possible gay representation, non binary representation and many different skin tones.
I can understand however if people would find this book to be triggering due to a lot of death and racism/discrimination.
I am personally a non native reader and that was why I had trouble starting this book. The words and sentence building used weren’t familiar to me, which made it harder to understand what was written. I wouldn’t recommend this book to someone who just started reading in English as a non native speaker.
Besides that, this book has a lot of diversity, fun characters and a good plot!
So far I noticed pansexual representation, possible gay representation, non binary representation and many different skin tones.
I can understand however if people would find this book to be triggering due to a lot of death and racism/discrimination.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Fire/Fire injury, Xenophobia, Racism, and Hate crime
Moderate: Animal cruelty
micheala's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This is one of those books that I bought as soon as it came out (back in July of 2019) and never picked up. I bought it during the time that I was starting to no longer enjoy YA because I was consistently picking ones that I didn't like the tropes and thought that the main characters were all too stupid to live.
The main character Fie is part of the Crow caste, the only people who can't get the Sinner Plague and thus are the ones that deal with Mercy Killing those dying of it and burning the bodies so that the entire town doesn't become infected and die. Was it a questionable choice to pick this up now, having just passed a year into this pandemic? Maybe, but I really liked it so it's fine.
Looking at it as it's list of plot events, this is a fairly standard YA fantasy. However, it doesn't read that way. The first thing that made me think that this was going to land better for me was that the reason that the 16 year old girl was the one in charge was not because there were no adults/all the adults were useless/evil.
If you view the romance that develops based on the amount of time that the characters know each other it could be called instalove, however it didn't feel like that while I was reading it so it didn't bother me. Also, no love triangles!
I really liked how it ended, in that I'm definitely excited for the sequel but if your the kind of person who likes an open ending you could read this as a standalone.
I'm practicing being less stingy with my ratings this yer, and honestly I don't have any complaints about this book, so even though I'm not sure I would call it an all time favourite, it's still going to get 5 stars.
The main character Fie is part of the Crow caste, the only people who can't get the Sinner Plague and thus are the ones that deal with Mercy Killing those dying of it and burning the bodies so that the entire town doesn't become infected and die. Was it a questionable choice to pick this up now, having just passed a year into this pandemic? Maybe, but I really liked it so it's fine.
Looking at it as it's list of plot events, this is a fairly standard YA fantasy. However, it doesn't read that way. The first thing that made me think that this was going to land better for me was that the reason that the 16 year old girl was the one in charge was not because there were no adults/all the adults were useless/evil.
If you view the romance that develops based on the amount of time that the characters know each other it could be called instalove, however it didn't feel like that while I was reading it so it didn't bother me. Also, no love triangles!
I really liked how it ended, in that I'm definitely excited for the sequel but if your the kind of person who likes an open ending you could read this as a standalone.
I'm practicing being less stingy with my ratings this yer, and honestly I don't have any complaints about this book, so even though I'm not sure I would call it an all time favourite, it's still going to get 5 stars.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Blood, Death, Excrement, Gore, Grief, Kidnapping, Murder, Violence, Vomit, and Xenophobia
murphyslaw's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
A fanciful world houses a very direct Jim Crow allegory in this book. Reminiscent of NK Jemisin’s worldbuilding and understanding of social dynamics.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death
Moderate: Death of parent, Racism, and Xenophobia
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