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mollivz's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Blood, Bullying, Child abuse, Deadnaming, Death of parent, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Police brutality, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt
lgbtq+orcamagicka's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
medium-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? Yes
1.5
So much potential, so much disappointment.
I would like to preface by saying that like the MC, I am also a queer trans teenager. Just as it’s important to read Own Voices books, it’s also equally important to read Own Voices reviews.
Starting off the the positives, the amount of diverse representation in the book is commendable. Diversity like this is rare in the fantasy genre, and I’m happy more YA fantasy books are making the effort to include a diverse array of characters in their story. This story includes trans, non-binary, queer relationships, polyamory, disability rep, and BIPOC characters.
However the representation is pretty much the ONLY good thing about this story, and even that isn’t saying much. If anything that’s my best guess why I’m constantly seeing so much hype for this story. Everything else that’s supposed to make a story good amounts to nothing in this book. The writing style and the inclusion of internet lingo and humor ripped directly off of Tumblr and Twitter had me cringing and rolling my eyes every chapter. Not only was it incredibly dated, cringey, and fell flat as humor, it broke my immersion with the *fantasy* world building. I never want to see the words “mcfuckin”, “yeet”, “vibin”, or “I’m just a gay little worm” (I’m NOT even exaggerating on that one) in a novel ever again or I’m going to bang my head into a wall. It turns out the author admitted in an interview he used TikTok as a means of “researching teen humor”. My hot tip for any YA authors, don’t do this.
The characterizations were incredibly weak. The side characters were under developed, had the exact same sense of humor and way of speaking, and were unremarkable. Most of the queer characters just felt like collections of stereotypes plucked off of Tumblr or Twitter, and that’s what their entire personalities and senses of humor revolved around. It seemed that the author was so caught up trying to write DIVERSE characters, he forgot to write diverse CHARACTERS. I’m shocked that this is an “own voices” story considering the poor writing for the queer characters and how they felt more like internet caricatures of queer people. I would honestly use this book as an example of how to NOT write queer characters. The world also felt very unfinished and inconsistent. On one hand it can be argued that this is the first installment of a duology and the characters and world will likely develop more in the sequel. But I’ve read so many series that were able to do so much more with less of a word count just within a first installment. And considering that this book is 422 PAGES long, there is very little excuse for having such bland writing.
The antagonists were some of the worst I’ve seen. The main villain is barely seen nor heard from throughout the story and he has some of the most basic, cliche villain dialogue that had me rolling my eyes. He was literally a rip off of the blue-eyed-blond-haired Neo Nazi villain trope you see in most action movies. And what kind of name is Derek for a fantasy villain??? The twist villain had me confused and beyond annoyed. And again, immediately started spouting off the same cliche lines and “maniacal laughter” you see in every other basic cheesy story once they were revealed to be an antagonist. Antagonists are usually some of my favorite characters in the story since they work to drive the plot and conflict, but these characters were so little seen and so bland that I couldn’t take them nor their threats seriously. Also how on earth was Derek still in position of the Guard despite being an obvious terrorist against the monarchy? That made no sense?
The story lends itself to be a “political allegory” with “radical” views as the author states, yet it completely lacks subtly. The author treats his audience like they’re incompetent and have to have their hand held throughout the entire story. The main character literally explains the parallels between the treatment of witches by the Fae and persecution of queer people in the human world, as if that wasn’t completely obvious. There are also many more spelled out parallels regarding police brutality, social justice movements, and defunding the police that felt very heavy handed. At the end of the book there was an out of the blue scene that basically mirrored the “dismantle the police” movement, which felt very out of place and not even realistic dialogue for one of the characters. And then at the VERY END of the book, after hundreds of pages of trying to sort out the heir situation, suddenly the characters pull a Game of Thrones season 7 and argue for Democracy?? Where was all this at for the first 420 pages?? Both these scenes felt so heavy handed and random and just felt like the author was trying to squeeze in as many social justice messages as he could without bothering to cohesively weave them into the story. Plenty of young adult stories do an excellent job of writing allegories for modern issues in a complex, nuanced way while allowing the readers to understand the issues. This book is not one of them.
I’m usually one to LOVE an “unlikable” character, but Wyatt is beyond one of the most annoying, edgy, and stagnant protagonists I’ve ever read in a story. I honestly felt nothing towards him, he could have dropped dead and I wouldn’t have cared. He’s not smart. He not kind. He’s not brave. He’s not good at magic and he doesn’t even TRY to learn despite constantly COMPLAINING how he can’t control his abilities and that he’s a “monster”. He doesn’t lead. He’s not anything. He contributes nothing to the story except through reacting to plot points thrown in to make the book less boring. And the constant self depreciating monologue and self wallowing pitty party worked against him and only made me agree with his negative self talk even more. I also felt uncomfortable with the way he talked about some of the female characters, especially Briar and all the sexual comments he made about her. And his off handed remark about the lesbian queens left a bad taste in my mouth. Can we please have trans male characters in books without writing them to be borderline misogynists?
The “romance” in between Wyatt and Emyr is some of the weakest I’ve seen. I usually love a good queer enemies-to-lovers story, but I felt absolutely nothing towards the two. Maybe I’m just not a fan of the “fated mates” trope or the fact that most of their romantic chemistry was from when they were children, but I couldn’t feel any excitement towards them. There was way more telling instead of showing when it came to their interactions, mainly consisting of just Wyatt internally moaning about how attractive yet annoying Emyr is anytime he’s on page.
I wanted to like this book so badly. Trans characters are a rarity in fiction, especially in fantasy. I was able to relate to many of Wyatt’s struggles with transphobia, being misgendered and deadnamed, and his dysphoria. But the lesson learned is that just because a story has representation, does not make it a GOOD story.
I would like to preface by saying that like the MC, I am also a queer trans teenager. Just as it’s important to read Own Voices books, it’s also equally important to read Own Voices reviews.
Starting off the the positives, the amount of diverse representation in the book is commendable. Diversity like this is rare in the fantasy genre, and I’m happy more YA fantasy books are making the effort to include a diverse array of characters in their story. This story includes trans, non-binary, queer relationships, polyamory, disability rep, and BIPOC characters.
However the representation is pretty much the ONLY good thing about this story, and even that isn’t saying much. If anything that’s my best guess why I’m constantly seeing so much hype for this story. Everything else that’s supposed to make a story good amounts to nothing in this book. The writing style and the inclusion of internet lingo and humor ripped directly off of Tumblr and Twitter had me cringing and rolling my eyes every chapter. Not only was it incredibly dated, cringey, and fell flat as humor, it broke my immersion with the *fantasy* world building. I never want to see the words “mcfuckin”, “yeet”, “vibin”, or “I’m just a gay little worm” (I’m NOT even exaggerating on that one) in a novel ever again or I’m going to bang my head into a wall. It turns out the author admitted in an interview he used TikTok as a means of “researching teen humor”. My hot tip for any YA authors, don’t do this.
The characterizations were incredibly weak. The side characters were under developed, had the exact same sense of humor and way of speaking, and were unremarkable. Most of the queer characters just felt like collections of stereotypes plucked off of Tumblr or Twitter, and that’s what their entire personalities and senses of humor revolved around. It seemed that the author was so caught up trying to write DIVERSE characters, he forgot to write diverse CHARACTERS. I’m shocked that this is an “own voices” story considering the poor writing for the queer characters and how they felt more like internet caricatures of queer people. I would honestly use this book as an example of how to NOT write queer characters. The world also felt very unfinished and inconsistent. On one hand it can be argued that this is the first installment of a duology and the characters and world will likely develop more in the sequel. But I’ve read so many series that were able to do so much more with less of a word count just within a first installment. And considering that this book is 422 PAGES long, there is very little excuse for having such bland writing.
The antagonists were some of the worst I’ve seen. The main villain is barely seen nor heard from throughout the story and he has some of the most basic, cliche villain dialogue that had me rolling my eyes. He was literally a rip off of the blue-eyed-blond-haired Neo Nazi villain trope you see in most action movies. And what kind of name is Derek for a fantasy villain??? The twist villain had me confused and beyond annoyed. And again, immediately started spouting off the same cliche lines and “maniacal laughter” you see in every other basic cheesy story once they were revealed to be an antagonist. Antagonists are usually some of my favorite characters in the story since they work to drive the plot and conflict, but these characters were so little seen and so bland that I couldn’t take them nor their threats seriously. Also how on earth was Derek still in position of the Guard despite being an obvious terrorist against the monarchy? That made no sense?
The story lends itself to be a “political allegory” with “radical” views as the author states, yet it completely lacks subtly. The author treats his audience like they’re incompetent and have to have their hand held throughout the entire story. The main character literally explains the parallels between the treatment of witches by the Fae and persecution of queer people in the human world, as if that wasn’t completely obvious. There are also many more spelled out parallels regarding police brutality, social justice movements, and defunding the police that felt very heavy handed. At the end of the book there was an out of the blue scene that basically mirrored the “dismantle the police” movement, which felt very out of place and not even realistic dialogue for one of the characters. And then at the VERY END of the book, after hundreds of pages of trying to sort out the heir situation, suddenly the characters pull a Game of Thrones season 7 and argue for Democracy?? Where was all this at for the first 420 pages?? Both these scenes felt so heavy handed and random and just felt like the author was trying to squeeze in as many social justice messages as he could without bothering to cohesively weave them into the story. Plenty of young adult stories do an excellent job of writing allegories for modern issues in a complex, nuanced way while allowing the readers to understand the issues. This book is not one of them.
I’m usually one to LOVE an “unlikable” character, but Wyatt is beyond one of the most annoying, edgy, and stagnant protagonists I’ve ever read in a story. I honestly felt nothing towards him, he could have dropped dead and I wouldn’t have cared. He’s not smart. He not kind. He’s not brave. He’s not good at magic and he doesn’t even TRY to learn despite constantly COMPLAINING how he can’t control his abilities and that he’s a “monster”. He doesn’t lead. He’s not anything. He contributes nothing to the story except through reacting to plot points thrown in to make the book less boring. And the constant self depreciating monologue and self wallowing pitty party worked against him and only made me agree with his negative self talk even more. I also felt uncomfortable with the way he talked about some of the female characters, especially Briar and all the sexual comments he made about her. And his off handed remark about the lesbian queens left a bad taste in my mouth. Can we please have trans male characters in books without writing them to be borderline misogynists?
The “romance” in between Wyatt and Emyr is some of the weakest I’ve seen. I usually love a good queer enemies-to-lovers story, but I felt absolutely nothing towards the two. Maybe I’m just not a fan of the “fated mates” trope or the fact that most of their romantic chemistry was from when they were children, but I couldn’t feel any excitement towards them. There was way more telling instead of showing when it came to their interactions, mainly consisting of just Wyatt internally moaning about how attractive yet annoying Emyr is anytime he’s on page.
I wanted to like this book so badly. Trans characters are a rarity in fiction, especially in fantasy. I was able to relate to many of Wyatt’s struggles with transphobia, being misgendered and deadnamed, and his dysphoria. But the lesson learned is that just because a story has representation, does not make it a GOOD story.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Transphobia, Blood, and Death of parent
Moderate: Gore, Child abuse, and Pregnancy
Minor: Grief, Terminal illness, Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Adult/minor relationship, and Deadnaming
worldmoth's review against another edition
adventurous
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
5.0
oh my gods, not only is this book one of my new favorites, I genuinely think that it might be the best book I’ve ever read. All of the characters felt so real and they developed and acted like real people do. All characters were completely morally grey, no one was truly bad or good. Not to mention the representation. Two of the main characters were Trans and Native respectively and never have I ever seen two parts of my identity represented in a better way. I am absolutely in love with everyone in this book. Also I cried so hard. HIGHLY recommend to everyone. Exited for the sequel.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Death, Murder, Sexual assault, and Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Miscarriage, Infertility, Transphobia, and Deadnaming
caseythereader's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
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
4.0
- Hi hi welcome to another QUEER SCREAMING review! THE WITCH KING is packed with so much good stuff: found family, the fluidity of trans identity, a huge spectrum of genders, sexualities, races, and more.
- Though the book is a wild ride through the fae kingdom, it also covers a lot of hard topics, too: cruel parents, trauma recovery, broken friendships, racism, trying to burn the system down.
- You know I love a book with a prickly protagonist, and that's Wyatt. He makes a lot of bad choices and says a lot of hurtful things impulsively, but much of this book is about him and his friends growing through it together.
- THE WITCH KING is just such a unique book for so many reasons that I can't fit it all here. If you love queer fantasy, put it at the top of your list!
- Though the book is a wild ride through the fae kingdom, it also covers a lot of hard topics, too: cruel parents, trauma recovery, broken friendships, racism, trying to burn the system down.
- You know I love a book with a prickly protagonist, and that's Wyatt. He makes a lot of bad choices and says a lot of hurtful things impulsively, but much of this book is about him and his friends growing through it together.
- THE WITCH KING is just such a unique book for so many reasons that I can't fit it all here. If you love queer fantasy, put it at the top of your list!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Bullying, Child abuse, Colonisation, Cursing, Deadnaming, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence
Moderate: Abandonment, Alcohol, Genocide, Infertility, Police brutality, Pregnancy, and Transphobia
sanktxjehan's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
sad
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
3.25
I really wanted to love this book. I really, really did. The concept of an angry trans protagonist taking on their past? Fantastic. I really want more good trans rep (and I did feel like this book was good on that point!). But this book fell flat on so many other levels for me.
The good: I really liked the characters. There's one point where Wyatt thinks something like "maybe in another life, another universe, things could have been different" and I was like yes I would love an AU of this. They are the sole reason I'm rating this book as high as I am.
(I read this via audiobook, please forgive any typos or misspellings.)
Non-spoilery critiques: The world-building made no sense. I mean, it made sense in that I understood it, but it didn't in that this is a book about faeries and witches living hidden in the human world and it makes absolutely no reference to how human conceptions of faeries and witches are either 1) different from the truth or 2) influenced by actual interactions with faeries and witches. Like. Do human myths about faeries exist? What about witches? Were they developed independently of the real faeries and witches (since faeries and witches only came to the human world like 500 years ago through a portal) or were they based off real interactions? Like, if you're not going to at least reference the established mythos surrounding faeries and witches but instead make up your own thing, why call them faeries and witches at all? It almost feels like the author took the tiktok aesthetic of being a faerie or a witch and tried to turn it into an actual species of being. Who are genetically related, for some reason.
The book does a good job describing the magic of the world so that I understand how it works but not why. Why do witch powers involve tarot and sigils? Did humans steal tarot from the witches? Or did witches discover it in the human world? The book gives me next to nothing about the history of faeries and witches being here. Like, they say faeries and witches have been completely hidden from humans this whole time but someone must have been living on the land the faeries took over, right? Especially since the author does actively point out the colonizing aspect of the faeries coming to Earth. Make it make sense.
The writing overall was pretty weak to me. I don't mean this because of the amount of slang and internet vernacular, I actually didn't mind that too much. It was more weak in a debut author kind of way. The pacing was weird and there many elements that didn't make sense or that I felt weren't built up to/foreshadowed enough. This book was also openly trying to be an oppression metaphor (there's one passage where Wyatt directly compares the plight of witches to that of queer kids (I listened to the audiobook so I can't find the passage) and a part where he thinks about race in the context of faeries but comes to no conclusions about how it interacts with human racism) but I feel like it missed the mark on so many levels. The main one was just...an oversimplification or lack of understanding of how institutionalized systems of oppression work, oddly enough? Like, it was clear from the beginning that something was rotten in the state of Denmark but the characters were overall too trusting of people they shouldn't have trusted. I felt like this should have therefore contained a lot of political intrigue (which I love) and it just...didn't.
Spoilery critiques:
One really good example of all of the weak writing is the riot and storming of the palace, that kind of came out of nowhere to me. (And then they just went back to normal??) I feel like there should have been other incidents leading up to that point but instead we're just retroactively told "this has been coming for a long time." But like (sorry to bring real politics in) when the Trump supporters stormed the capital, there had already been other riots and instances of violence on the part of his supporters for years beforehand, and Trump actively incited the riot with his speech and rhetoric. Are we to believe that there had been other riots that no one mentioned, that the Guard were involved in, but the royal family still trusted them anyway? And the Guard is supposed to be standing in for the police, right, and they mention early on that Derrick is the head of the Guard and the Guard is clearly loyal enough to him to arrest Wyatt against the orders of the royal family in the beginning...but then they still expect the Guard to protect Wyatt during the riot and act surprised when the guards betray their posts? What? And why are they so surprised by wrongful arrests and false accusations? Shouldn't Wyatt know not to trust police from the activist work Briar's parents do? Make it make sense!!!
I realize that maybe because this book is YA, it's trying to be an introduction to the concept of police abolition through fantasy for younger readers, but even still, it could have done a much better job at portraying how institutionalized oppression and state violence works, thus making a stronger argument for police abolition, than it did.
Also, it makes no sense that the Guard is the only thing portrayed to be corrupt when they live under a f*cking monarchy! I know monarchy is the predominant form of government in fantasy and that no one, including this book, does a good job of portraying how it's actually a bit more like hereditary fascism than any monarchists want to admit, but to have this book be about oppressive systems of power and then to only come in with an anti-monarchist idea in literally the last five minutes seemed very tone-deaf. ESPECIALLY since they don't really portray how awful and damaging monarchy can be and instead promote the idea that a "good king" can solve all their problems throughout most of the book. Good kings are purely an invention of fantasy. On ne peut pointe régner innocement. No one can reign innocently.
There is also the concept of "fated mates" in this world which I think the author had to have to make the idea that Emyr couldn't/wouldn't marry anyone but Wyatt work, but I really expected that trope to be broken down and critiqued more than it was. Wyatt is so mad about it being bio-essentialist and perfect-baby-making-genetics-based in the beginning but then comes around in the end when it's revealed that some other monarchs are gay and/or can't have kids. Am I the only one who thinks that's not enough? If the cisheteronormative idea of fated mates is so predominant in faerie society, couldn't it be that the monarchs are only able to get away with their "unusual" mates because of the immense privilege of being monarchs? What about normal people who have "unusual" mate situations?
(Also, side note, but with how weird the fated mates shit was and how weird the world-building around faeries and witches was, there were several moments throughout this book where I wondered if this was a converted A/B/O story. So. There's that.)
Finally, it was really weird to me that, in the end, when it's revealed that there are still faeries in Faery, they automatically believe those faeries are bad? I know those faeries hate them for abandoning them on a dying world but...that seems fair right? But instead the main characters (including Briar!) embrace the idea that they're murderous savages? I can only hope that idea is critiqued and disproved in the sequel (which I assume will be a thing given how the book ended) but I can't say I'll read it.
The good: I really liked the characters. There's one point where Wyatt thinks something like "maybe in another life, another universe, things could have been different" and I was like yes I would love an AU of this. They are the sole reason I'm rating this book as high as I am.
(I read this via audiobook, please forgive any typos or misspellings.)
Non-spoilery critiques: The world-building made no sense. I mean, it made sense in that I understood it, but it didn't in that this is a book about faeries and witches living hidden in the human world and it makes absolutely no reference to how human conceptions of faeries and witches are either 1) different from the truth or 2) influenced by actual interactions with faeries and witches. Like. Do human myths about faeries exist? What about witches? Were they developed independently of the real faeries and witches (since faeries and witches only came to the human world like 500 years ago through a portal) or were they based off real interactions? Like, if you're not going to at least reference the established mythos surrounding faeries and witches but instead make up your own thing, why call them faeries and witches at all? It almost feels like the author took the tiktok aesthetic of being a faerie or a witch and tried to turn it into an actual species of being. Who are genetically related, for some reason.
The book does a good job describing the magic of the world so that I understand how it works but not why. Why do witch powers involve tarot and sigils? Did humans steal tarot from the witches? Or did witches discover it in the human world? The book gives me next to nothing about the history of faeries and witches being here. Like, they say faeries and witches have been completely hidden from humans this whole time but someone must have been living on the land the faeries took over, right? Especially since the author does actively point out the colonizing aspect of the faeries coming to Earth. Make it make sense.
The writing overall was pretty weak to me. I don't mean this because of the amount of slang and internet vernacular, I actually didn't mind that too much. It was more weak in a debut author kind of way. The pacing was weird and there many elements that didn't make sense or that I felt weren't built up to/foreshadowed enough. This book was also openly trying to be an oppression metaphor (there's one passage where Wyatt directly compares the plight of witches to that of queer kids (I listened to the audiobook so I can't find the passage) and a part where he thinks about race in the context of faeries but comes to no conclusions about how it interacts with human racism) but I feel like it missed the mark on so many levels. The main one was just...an oversimplification or lack of understanding of how institutionalized systems of oppression work, oddly enough? Like, it was clear from the beginning that something was rotten in the state of Denmark but the characters were overall too trusting of people they shouldn't have trusted. I felt like this should have therefore contained a lot of political intrigue (which I love) and it just...didn't.
Spoilery critiques:
I realize that maybe because this book is YA, it's trying to be an introduction to the concept of police abolition through fantasy for younger readers, but even still, it could have done a much better job at portraying how institutionalized oppression and state violence works, thus making a stronger argument for police abolition, than it did.
Also, it makes no sense that the Guard is the only thing portrayed to be corrupt when they live under a f*cking monarchy! I know monarchy is the predominant form of government in fantasy and that no one, including this book, does a good job of portraying how it's actually a bit more like hereditary fascism than any monarchists want to admit, but to have this book be about oppressive systems of power and then to only come in with an anti-monarchist idea in literally the last five minutes seemed very tone-deaf. ESPECIALLY since they don't really portray how awful and damaging monarchy can be and instead promote the idea that a "good king" can solve all their problems throughout most of the book. Good kings are purely an invention of fantasy. On ne peut pointe régner innocement. No one can reign innocently.
There is also the concept of "fated mates" in this world which I think the author had to have to make the idea that Emyr couldn't/wouldn't marry anyone but Wyatt work, but I really expected that trope to be broken down and critiqued more than it was. Wyatt is so mad about it being bio-essentialist and perfect-baby-making-genetics-based in the beginning but then comes around in the end when it's revealed that some other monarchs are gay and/or can't have kids. Am I the only one who thinks that's not enough? If the cisheteronormative idea of fated mates is so predominant in faerie society, couldn't it be that the monarchs are only able to get away with their "unusual" mates because of the immense privilege of being monarchs? What about normal people who have "unusual" mate situations?
(Also, side note, but with how weird the fated mates shit was and how weird the world-building around faeries and witches was, there were several moments throughout this book where I wondered if this was a converted A/B/O story. So. There's that.)
Finally, it was really weird to me that, in the end, when it's revealed that there are still faeries in Faery, they automatically believe those faeries are bad? I know those faeries hate them for abandoning them on a dying world but...that seems fair right? But instead the main characters (including Briar!) embrace the idea that they're murderous savages? I can only hope that idea is critiqued and disproved in the sequel (which I assume will be a thing given how the book ended) but I can't say I'll read it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Vomit
Moderate: Police brutality
Minor: Sexual content and Sexual harassment
puttingwingsonwords's review against another edition
dark
emotional
funny
tense
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Bullying, Child abuse, Cursing, Death of parent, Death, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Sexual assault, Violence, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Abandonment, Confinement, Transphobia, Toxic relationship, and Infertility
Minor: Alcohol, Drug use, Dysphoria, and Pregnancy
foreverinastory's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I loved this so much!!!
Rep: white gay trans male MC, Black male love interest (Wyatt-sexual/aspec), fat indigenous (Seminole) bi-asexual female side character, sapphic nonbinary side character, sapphic side characters, achillean side characters,
CWs (from the authors website): Violence (including gore, arson, attempted murder, and murder), Misgendering (accidental and intentional, including deadnaming—however, the deadname is not written out), Abusive parents, Childhood sexual harassment and assault (harassment is graphic, assault is not), Grooming/predatory behavior between an adult and a teenager, Infertility and miscarriage mention, On-page panic attack, Suicidal ideation and brief mentions of suicide, Drug use.
Rep: white gay trans male MC, Black male love interest (Wyatt-sexual/aspec), fat indigenous (Seminole) bi-asexual female side character, sapphic nonbinary side character, sapphic side characters, achillean side characters,
CWs (from the authors website): Violence (including gore, arson, attempted murder, and murder), Misgendering (accidental and intentional, including deadnaming—however, the deadname is not written out), Abusive parents, Childhood sexual harassment and assault (harassment is graphic, assault is not), Grooming/predatory behavior between an adult and a teenager, Infertility and miscarriage mention, On-page panic attack, Suicidal ideation and brief mentions of suicide, Drug use.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Bullying, Child abuse, Deadnaming, Death of parent, Drug use, Gore, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Police brutality, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Violence, and Sexual harassment
Moderate: Sexual assault, Sexual content, Infertility, Miscarriage, Suicide, and Suicide attempt
amandaquotidianbooks's review against another edition
dark
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
The characterization was not as complex as I would have liked, especially with the side characters. Wyatt and Emyr’s relationship suffered from a lack of conversation. The ending was a bit too dramatic and rushed for me, but fit the book as a whole. I think the target audience is younger teens who want to read darker books.
Content Warnings
Minor: Sexual assault, Sexual content, Police brutality, Gore, and Deadnaming
hpepperstone's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Minor: Gore, Pedophilia, and Sexual assault
catboypaws's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Body horror, and Blood
Moderate: Sexual assault, Transphobia, Deadnaming, and Violence