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mbradham's review
adventurous
funny
hopeful
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
Loved the found family aspect of this book and it was very funny. However, it got very slow half-way through and after that point the plot almost felt forced. I’m still planning on reading the sequel but the first book feels incomplete by itself in a weird way
Content Warnings
Moderate: Murder, Blood, and Body horror
Minor: Rape
cookiecat73's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Physical abuse
Moderate: Abandonment, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gun violence, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Violence, and War
Minor: Colonisation, Confinement, Cultural appropriation, Cursing, Dysphoria, Grief, and Self harm
bluejayreads's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
King Arthur in space. Cool idea, right? It gets better.
King Arthur and his knights are reincarnated every so often. The 42nd King Arthur is Ari Helix, an illegal immigrant from a blocked-off planet currently on the run with her adopted brother after their mothers were arrested and imprisoned for not turning Ari in. They're on the run from the Mercer Corporation, the galaxy-wide monopoly on everything that blocked off Ari's planet for saying that monopolies were bad, actually, and basically are the government because if the government does something they don't like they can just stop delivering food and water until the government changes their mind.
Ari herself is hard-headed, stubborn, devoted to those close to her, and deeply passionate about truth. She is almost physically incapable of telling a lie, hates lies by omission just as much, and once ended a relationship because she felt like her girlfriend not telling her every single thing about herself immediately up front was tantamount to being lied to. Not only did that make her an interesting character, but it functioned as both a positive thing and a character flaw depending on the situation.
Merlin was a point-of-view character, cursed to age backwards so a couple millenia after helping the original King Arthur he's somewhere around seventeen. It's his job to mentor each reincarnation of Arthur, train him (or her, in the case of Ari), and accomplish a series of steps that the Lady of the Lake set out to end the cycle of reincarnation. Forty-one Arthurs before Ari have died without completing the steps, and Merlin carries the guilt of every single one. He is also incredibly gay, and completely adorable falling for one of Ari's "knights."
All of the characters in this book are stellar (pun intended). From Ari herself to her love interest Gwen (regal, pragmatic, and literally queen of a planet); Merlin (terrified of de-aging out of existence and not sure what to do about teenage hormones) and Morgana (not quite a physical being and fairly terrifying); Ari's knights, including her relentlessly practical brother and a nonbinary friend who uses they/them pronouns; and the director of the Mercer Corporation who gives the faceless evil company a hateable and very punchable face
.
I've seen criticisms of this book saying the pacing is all over the place, and I can absolutely understand not liking this. But personally, I found it a delightful sort of chaotic. This book gets really dark at times, from relationship betrayals to literal genocide, and fits a lot of really intense emotions into less than 400 pages, but it's balanced somewhat by witty quips and bordering-on-absurd situations. It's one of those books where looking back some of it was a little ridiculous, but in the moment it was a great read.
Considering the end of this book, I'm not sure I want to read book two - the ending wasn't bad, but it was setting up what sounds like a vastly different type of adventure, and I don't know if that's really what I want out of these characters and this concept. But this book was absolutely worth the read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Violence, Animal death, Murder, Genocide, Blood, Child death, and Grief
Moderate: Death of parent, Body horror, and Gore
Minor: Rape
Needles, prison, being injected without consent, misgendering (once, accidental and immediately corrected)
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