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mortonsspoon's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
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
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Kidnapping, Torture, and Violence
spiritedfaraway's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
mysterious
medium-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? N/A
4.0
This book is what you get when you mix dark humor, a quest, advanced machinery, magic and a queer slowburn warrior prince/pragmatic thief romance together and I absolutely adored it! It also doesn't hurt that there is lots of diversity in the cast of main characters.
"They only problem was that Rag's couldn't think of any story or rhyme where a human shook hands with a fae and came out on top."
I will say that Rags' point of view was my favorite. Rags is my grumpy son and he needs to be protected at all costs, okay? I have such a soft spot for grumpy and sarcastic characters and the people that love them. Which brings me to my brand new OTP: Shining Talon and Rags! All the scenes with them were *chef's kiss* and I would scream in joy if we got Shining Talon's point of view in the next book!
The only thing about this book that wasn't my favorite was how I probably would have enjoyed this more if it was just from a couple point of views, instead of five. Which isn't to say I hated the other point of views, I just wasn't as engaged in them as I was with Rags'. But that's totally a me thing.
Overall, I found this to be an amazingly fun beginning and I can’t wait to get my hands on the sequel. Because I seriously need more Rags and Shining Talon and the fact that there isn’t any fanfic for them is a shame lol
"They only problem was that Rag's couldn't think of any story or rhyme where a human shook hands with a fae and came out on top."
I will say that Rags' point of view was my favorite. Rags is my grumpy son and he needs to be protected at all costs, okay? I have such a soft spot for grumpy and sarcastic characters and the people that love them. Which brings me to my brand new OTP: Shining Talon and Rags! All the scenes with them were *chef's kiss* and I would scream in joy if we got Shining Talon's point of view in the next book!
The only thing about this book that wasn't my favorite was how I probably would have enjoyed this more if it was just from a couple point of views, instead of five. Which isn't to say I hated the other point of views, I just wasn't as engaged in them as I was with Rags'. But that's totally a me thing.
Overall, I found this to be an amazingly fun beginning and I can’t wait to get my hands on the sequel. Because I seriously need more Rags and Shining Talon and the fact that there isn’t any fanfic for them is a shame lol
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Grief, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Torture, and Violence
Moderate: Ableism, Body horror, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Infertility, Medical content, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Trafficking, and Xenophobia
Minor: Child death and Infertility
gracew's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
A lot happens in this book. Like a lot. And most of it doesn't wrap up at all. This would have great benefited from being significantly slowed down with less characters being thrown at us midway through the book. With the exception of Rags and Shining, every single romance felt entirely too fast and without much growth. It feels like they were trying to do a duology and so they crammed the first and second book together. I have no idea what to expect from a sequel which I probably won't read anyway. There just wasn't enough attention focused on growth beyond Rags I felt and I just didn't care for most of the rest of the cast. The world building was somewhat slapdash as well. I wanted to like this book, I started out liking this book, but it just didn't work for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Torture, Blood, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Animal death, and Confinement
fromjuliereads's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
**Thank you to Harper Collins Canada for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.**
I stayed up late to finish this book last night, and honestly all I want to do is shout about it!! While the pacing was a little difficult sometimes, that was the only piece that kept me from rating this a full 5 stars.
Things that this book has that you will love:
- a heist. Enough said.
- a quest that comes about from the above heist. It is such an adventure and there were some fantastic twists!
- awesome characters! I honestly loved all of the characters. And they are so realistically flawed. It is amazing to see!
- rep! There is LGBTQ+ rep, and a character is disabled. And these are both characters that get povs.
- fae! I feel like so many of us love fae in stories 😅
- a really cool magic system. This one is so unique, I honestly haven't encountered another magic system like this one which was so refreshing and intriguing!!!
- a creepy evil sorcerer 🙌
- a found family of sorts.
There isn't a lot I can get into without giving things away, so I am going to leave it at that. While there are numerous differences, could definitely recommend this if you liked the heist, adventure, and found family parts of Six of Crows. They have some small similarities in my opinion!
I will mention - check the pronunciation guide! A few character names are based on Celtic words and sounds I think, so they are pronounced quite different than how they are spelt (ie. Somhairle is pronounced SORE-luh). I was definitely pronouncing quite a few of the names wrong in my head before I found the pronunciation guide at the back...
I stayed up late to finish this book last night, and honestly all I want to do is shout about it!! While the pacing was a little difficult sometimes, that was the only piece that kept me from rating this a full 5 stars.
Things that this book has that you will love:
- a heist. Enough said.
- a quest that comes about from the above heist. It is such an adventure and there were some fantastic twists!
- awesome characters! I honestly loved all of the characters. And they are so realistically flawed. It is amazing to see!
- rep! There is LGBTQ+ rep, and a character is disabled. And these are both characters that get povs.
- fae! I feel like so many of us love fae in stories 😅
- a really cool magic system. This one is so unique, I honestly haven't encountered another magic system like this one which was so refreshing and intriguing!!!
- a creepy evil sorcerer 🙌
- a found family of sorts.
There isn't a lot I can get into without giving things away, so I am going to leave it at that. While there are numerous differences, could definitely recommend this if you liked the heist, adventure, and found family parts of Six of Crows. They have some small similarities in my opinion!
I will mention - check the pronunciation guide! A few character names are based on Celtic words and sounds I think, so they are pronounced quite different than how they are spelt (ie. Somhairle is pronounced SORE-luh). I was definitely pronouncing quite a few of the names wrong in my head before I found the pronunciation guide at the back...
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing
Moderate: Blood, Death, and Grief
Minor: Animal death, Child abuse, Infertility, Kidnapping, and Torture
For the minor spoilers, they are very briefly mentioned. There is not much detail but these are things that happen through the story. The child abuse is related to fae children. It makes more sense in the story but something I wanted to add. There is a lot of cursing since Rags is a thief from the streets...unicornsbookshelf's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Disclaimer: I have voluntarily reviewed this book after receiving a free copy from the publisher via Edelweiss+; thank you!
I had no idea that a romance between a himbo fae and a very averse to being loved thief was something I needed in 2020 but this book proved me wrong.
Rags are on his way to rob the treasury of the Gutter King when he gets captured by the Queensguard and brought in front of one of the heads of the royal houses and a sorcerer known from horrible stories - Morien the Last. Morien wants Rags’ skills to get into ancient fae ruins and find the treasure inside. At the end of the maze, however, Rags doesn’t find gold but a sleeping fae who has a much bigger quest for him.
I went into Master of One expecting it to be mainly one POV story. Because of that I was kind of thrown off my groove and it took me a while to get used to perspective jumps, which get more frequent the more we get into the book. When you accept that you have to get invested in more than just two characters and get used to POV changes it’s much better so keep in mind this is kind of a squad book. Overall, when it comes to the plot it was fast-paced but still left time for the main romance slowly developing. There was a lot of action, which I felt took away from the relationship growing between our group of heroes and it didn’t help that some of them had all the reason to actively hate the others. I feel like we still have a chance to see that develop in the future books, though and I’m waiting happily for some found family feels. I also enjoyed the parts of the Great Paragon interacting with their masters and with each other and how each of them had its personality.
Now, for the characters - Rags and Shining Talon were my absolute favorites. Their relationship was sweet and I loved seeing how angry Rags would get because he didn’t think he deserved Tal’s kindness. I also liked Somhairle’s POV and Inis grew on me as the plot progressed. I think my least favorite was Cab, mostly because I didn’t care that much for his plotline and the side characters around him. I felt his part suffered from introducing too many characters at once and not having the time to develop them. Besides that, however, the characters are promising and lovable, each one with their unique voice. They are also all very queer with m/m romance in the center, a trans character, and possibly some other rep in the sequel.
All in all, Master of One is a great YA debut with a world and story that shows a lot of promise and a group of lovable misfits. I’m really curious to see how the series progresses.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Torture and Violence
Minor: Genocide
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