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queer_bookwyrm's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
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? It's complicated
4.0
4 ⭐ CW: violence, child abuse/abuse in general, cursing, homophobia, misogyny, suicidal ideation, sexual content, attempted rape, vomiting, death of a parent, death of a child, substance use/addiction
Natural Outlaws and Fractured Sovereignty by S.M. Pierce is an adult dark fantasy that is super queer and has a heist! We get some wonderful found family moments and some great rep as follows: queer platonic relationship between main characters, Kalen uses he/they and is attracted to men, Blythe is alloaro and bi, Frida is a lesbian, and Saihd is (I think) intersex and ace.
We start with Kalen and his suicide attempt and Blythe talking him down. Kalen came from the home of an abusive noble, and Blythe is a poor girl just trying to take care of her ailing father while trying to please her god by being self sacrificing. Kalen is an expert in making bombs, and Blythe has a bestowment (sort like a talent like a Grace in Graceling) that makes it easy for her to hide or go unnoticed. When Kalen convinces Blythe to steal from the rich to feed themselves and pay rent, they are caught by the Governor, and coerced into planning a heist against a rival nation.
Blythe has to pretend to be a noble and go unnoticed in order to pull off the heist while Kalen is a servant, Frida (their roommate) poses as a cook, the Sea captain Saihd posing as an advisor, and the Viper (the governor's ward/indentured servant) poses as Blythe's lady in waiting. Blythe struggles with the need to harm other people as it goes against her self sacrificing way. She's a little too rightous, and it gets her into trouble. Kalen is struggling with the abuse they must endure at the hands of the servant Superior, triggering memories of his abusive father. The Viper must learn that kindness doesn't always come with a cost. Yay found family!
The Fletch King is the worst! He has a bestowment that makes him hard to resist and he gave me the major ick. I loved the relationship between Kalen and Blythe. We do get a bit of a miscommunication trope between them, but in this case it works pretty well, but I still wanted to yell at them to just talk about it. I do wish we had gotten more from Frida and Saihd, but I loved the growth that the Viper, or should I say, Arabella had. Although her arc was predictable, it was satisfying.
I don't know if there is going to be a book two or not, but I would totally read about these characters smuggling "natural Outlaws" (queer people) to safe places. This was super queer and I love the found family. Looking forward to more from this author.
This book releases August 12th, so get your copy!
Natural Outlaws and Fractured Sovereignty by S.M. Pierce is an adult dark fantasy that is super queer and has a heist! We get some wonderful found family moments and some great rep as follows: queer platonic relationship between main characters, Kalen uses he/they and is attracted to men, Blythe is alloaro and bi, Frida is a lesbian, and Saihd is (I think) intersex and ace.
We start with Kalen and his suicide attempt and Blythe talking him down. Kalen came from the home of an abusive noble, and Blythe is a poor girl just trying to take care of her ailing father while trying to please her god by being self sacrificing. Kalen is an expert in making bombs, and Blythe has a bestowment (sort like a talent like a Grace in Graceling) that makes it easy for her to hide or go unnoticed. When Kalen convinces Blythe to steal from the rich to feed themselves and pay rent, they are caught by the Governor, and coerced into planning a heist against a rival nation.
Blythe has to pretend to be a noble and go unnoticed in order to pull off the heist while Kalen is a servant, Frida (their roommate) poses as a cook, the Sea captain Saihd posing as an advisor, and the Viper (the governor's ward/indentured servant) poses as Blythe's lady in waiting. Blythe struggles with the need to harm other people as it goes against her self sacrificing way. She's a little too rightous, and it gets her into trouble. Kalen is struggling with the abuse they must endure at the hands of the servant Superior, triggering memories of his abusive father. The Viper must learn that kindness doesn't always come with a cost. Yay found family!
The Fletch King is the worst! He has a bestowment that makes him hard to resist and he gave me the major ick. I loved the relationship between Kalen and Blythe. We do get a bit of a miscommunication trope between them, but in this case it works pretty well, but I still wanted to yell at them to just talk about it. I do wish we had gotten more from Frida and Saihd, but I loved the growth that the Viper, or should I say, Arabella had. Although her arc was predictable, it was satisfying.
I don't know if there is going to be a book two or not, but I would totally read about these characters smuggling "natural Outlaws" (queer people) to safe places. This was super queer and I love the found family. Looking forward to more from this author.
This book releases August 12th, so get your copy!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Drug abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Sexual content, Homophobia, Child abuse, Physical abuse, Child death, and Death of parent
Moderate: Cursing and Vomit
remus_reads's review
emotional
hopeful
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
Thank you to the lovely author for sending me an ARC of this book. All opinions are my own.
Overall:
First of all, I loved this book, it was amazing and although there were a few things I didn’t love, I recommend it to everyone who loves dark fantasy and needs more a-spec rep in their books.
I have to be honest with you, when I started this book I thought “Oh god, I’m not gonna like this book but I’ll have to push through cause it’s an ARC.”
That’s where I made the mistake. I’m just too critical in the beginning but, let me tell you, not even TWENTY pages later I COULDN’T put this book down anymore.
I was sucked right into the story and it kept me in its claws right until the end!
Mandatory SoC reference:
Another confession I have to make is that I always fall into the trap of comparing every heist story to Six of Crows.
This book is comparable to Six of Crows in the sense that, if SoC had a younger, softer sibling, it would be this book. The characters try to pull off a heist without brutally murdering everyone that inconveniences them. They are strong characters without being physically the strongest or having otherworldly talents for making plans.
Characters/found family:
I wouldn’t say that this book is without its triggers and it is very much a dark fanyasy, but something about the writing and the characters just had a tenderness to it. I wanted only the best to happen to these characters.
The found family was something that I would put in a blender and drink as a smoothie if I could. It was just perfect and it had ALL of the a-spec rep you could wish for. I mean, this book features the queer-platonic relationship of my dreams and it just makes so much sense that they aren’t romantically involved.
There were instances when I was kind of annoyed by Kalen and Blythe because they had literally the same thoughts and it lead to miscommunication, but when thinking about their past it makes sense that they‘re bad at communicating. Also it got better throughout the book.
Another positive thing I want to mention is that Kaylen uses he/they pronouns and the author changed it up every few pages/sentences. That was very refreshing to see because often times authors will state: „Character x uses he/they pronouns“ but then end up only using one of them.
Plot/pacing:
Although I want to gush over all the things I love I have to mention that the pacing of the plot didn’t quite resonate with me. It was rather slow paced for a heist story and even though I was interested in it, sometimes I seemed to forget the stakes.
Also the only scenes where „ a lot happened“ weren‘t really detailed and felt almost fade to black. This didn‘t take away from my overall enjoyment of the book.
Religion/faith:
Another thing I really loved was the theme of religion throughout the book and coming to terms with not believing in the religion. It seemed likea really healthy way of desling with religion and coming to terms with the fact that religion and faith aren‘t the only important things in life.
I think it showed really well how different people deal with and come to terms with their faith or their believes.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Grief, and Panic attacks/disorders
Moderate: Torture and Sexual assault
mxbluet18's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
lighthearted
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? It's complicated
5.0
Trigger warnings for Natural Outlaws and Fractured Sovereignty include: suicide attempts; sexual assault & coercion; mind control; violent abuse, drug & alcohol use;
queerphobia & fictional slurs; classism, colonialism, death & grief; mental health issues and aquaphobia.
☆
☆
Listen, I know that many authors enjoy emotionally and physically prodding their cinnamon roll characters, but I cant help but care about them. One particular quote I loved was “Kalen deserved all the happiness in the world.” because it's very true. After everything they've been put through he needs someone to care about them.
~
And that opening. That was enough to get me intrigued and wanting to find out more, why where they there, what was going on. And it only got more intense from there. It was high stakes in the best kind of way. I thought I knew what was happening, turns out I didn't, but that's fine.
~
High stakes is right, but so is unfairly good. It was addictive, I swear there was some sort of substance in the pages cause there ain't no way I got that addicted and invested in the characters. But God damn.
~
I also really liked the dedication in the front of this book, which reads: "This book is dedicated to anyone who's ever been made to feel like the world doesn't have space for them. We'll make space." It really spoke to me because I've felt that way before. And in time I had a place where space was made for me to be myself and be loved for exactly who I am.
•
Thank you to author S.M. Pearce for sending me an ARC copy of this book.
queerphobia & fictional slurs; classism, colonialism, death & grief; mental health issues and aquaphobia.
☆
☆
Listen, I know that many authors enjoy emotionally and physically prodding their cinnamon roll characters, but I cant help but care about them. One particular quote I loved was “Kalen deserved all the happiness in the world.” because it's very true. After everything they've been put through he needs someone to care about them.
~
And that opening. That was enough to get me intrigued and wanting to find out more, why where they there, what was going on. And it only got more intense from there. It was high stakes in the best kind of way. I thought I knew what was happening, turns out I didn't, but that's fine.
~
High stakes is right, but so is unfairly good. It was addictive, I swear there was some sort of substance in the pages cause there ain't no way I got that addicted and invested in the characters. But God damn.
~
I also really liked the dedication in the front of this book, which reads: "This book is dedicated to anyone who's ever been made to feel like the world doesn't have space for them. We'll make space." It really spoke to me because I've felt that way before. And in time I had a place where space was made for me to be myself and be loved for exactly who I am.
•
Thank you to author S.M. Pearce for sending me an ARC copy of this book.
sophiareads_'s review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
slow-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
2.0
Content Warnings: Violence, death (including child death, animal death, death of a parent), suicide attempt, sexual assault, mind control, homophobia, transphobia, restrictive eating
Blythe and Kalen are caught robbing the Governor's mansion and blackmailed into leading a heist against a rival nation to postpone a brewing war.
This sounded so fun - a queer fantasy heist story - but unfortunately it was a real disappointment for me. This book has a major issue with 'tell' over 'show' writing in almost every aspect, which started off a little boring and got exceedingly irritating as it continued. At it's tamest, this manifests as world building being either underdeveloped (elements such as the 'bestowments' people have are really only mentioned in a very surface level way), or are presented with an inelegant info dump. At it's worst, whole scenes are described to us in two or three sentences rather than... like... actually being written.
Early on, we build to our characters overpowering a crew and taking over their boat, and this is, unfathomably, a fade to black? Of the most interesting scene of the book thus far? This was an absolutely bizarre choice. I was baffled and disappointed by this choice, but was going to mostly overlook it UNTIL IT HAPPENED AGAIN. The author goes out of her way not to write the scene of our characters discovering the location of the vault they'll be robbing, by having a POV character poison herself so that neither of our POV characters can be part of the scene that would actually be interesting to read. I don't know how to interpret this, it's such a bad way to write a book.
Speaking of our POV characters, Blythe and Kalen... I tried to like them, but GOD. For at least the first half of the book, both of their internal monologues are constant self deprecation and 'boo hoo this is all my fault I can't believe any of my friends don't hate me' which gets old SOOOOO fast. Blythe is particularly bad about this, especially because these convoluted self hating thought patterns start causing her to act unfathomably stupid. Like, so stupid I am not even starting to buy that a real person would make these choices. She deliberately jeopardises the group's mission because 'oh, I just can't burden them with this problem'. I was rolling my eyes into space.
All these issues in the 85% of the book which is build up to the actual heist and then... it's over in like 15 pages. Talk about anticlimactic. It was a bummer.
It might not sound like it, but this book did have things I liked! The Viper was easily my favourite, she was really cool and a pretty nuanced, multi-faceted character, and I liked her arc. She was definitely the highlight of the book for me. I also thought it was really cool that the main relationship here was a queer platonic relationship between Blythe and Kalen. Unfortunately, their relationship ended up falling a bit flat for me as I got frustrated by their miscommunication and again, thought we were told rather than shown how close they were, but conceptually, I was a fan! This was also the first book I've ever read with a main character who uses multiple (he/they) pronouns. It was a bit of a learning curve getting used to reading that, but it was really cool to see!
I think ultimately this was a case for me of a great concept and a not-so-great execution, unfortunately.
Thanks to the author for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Blythe and Kalen are caught robbing the Governor's mansion and blackmailed into leading a heist against a rival nation to postpone a brewing war.
This sounded so fun - a queer fantasy heist story - but unfortunately it was a real disappointment for me. This book has a major issue with 'tell' over 'show' writing in almost every aspect, which started off a little boring and got exceedingly irritating as it continued. At it's tamest, this manifests as world building being either underdeveloped (elements such as the 'bestowments' people have are really only mentioned in a very surface level way), or are presented with an inelegant info dump. At it's worst, whole scenes are described to us in two or three sentences rather than... like... actually being written.
Early on, we build to our characters overpowering a crew and taking over their boat, and this is, unfathomably, a fade to black? Of the most interesting scene of the book thus far? This was an absolutely bizarre choice. I was baffled and disappointed by this choice, but was going to mostly overlook it UNTIL IT HAPPENED AGAIN. The author goes out of her way not to write the scene of our characters discovering the location of the vault they'll be robbing, by having a POV character poison herself so that neither of our POV characters can be part of the scene that would actually be interesting to read. I don't know how to interpret this, it's such a bad way to write a book.
Speaking of our POV characters, Blythe and Kalen... I tried to like them, but GOD. For at least the first half of the book, both of their internal monologues are constant self deprecation and 'boo hoo this is all my fault I can't believe any of my friends don't hate me' which gets old SOOOOO fast. Blythe is particularly bad about this, especially because these convoluted self hating thought patterns start causing her to act unfathomably stupid. Like, so stupid I am not even starting to buy that a real person would make these choices. She deliberately jeopardises the group's mission because 'oh, I just can't burden them with this problem'. I was rolling my eyes into space.
All these issues in the 85% of the book which is build up to the actual heist and then... it's over in like 15 pages. Talk about anticlimactic. It was a bummer.
It might not sound like it, but this book did have things I liked! The Viper was easily my favourite, she was really cool and a pretty nuanced, multi-faceted character, and I liked her arc. She was definitely the highlight of the book for me. I also thought it was really cool that the main relationship here was a queer platonic relationship between Blythe and Kalen. Unfortunately, their relationship ended up falling a bit flat for me as I got frustrated by their miscommunication and again, thought we were told rather than shown how close they were, but conceptually, I was a fan! This was also the first book I've ever read with a main character who uses multiple (he/they) pronouns. It was a bit of a learning curve getting used to reading that, but it was really cool to see!
I think ultimately this was a case for me of a great concept and a not-so-great execution, unfortunately.
Thanks to the author for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Misogyny, Death, Violence, and Child death
Moderate: Death of parent, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Homophobia, and Eating disorder
Minor: Animal death, Animal cruelty, War, and Transphobia
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