A review by wardenred
Unbreakable by Mira Grant

dark emotional reflective tense 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

3.5

We got to fight the war. We got to bury the fallen. We never got to tell our story.

This is such a hard book for me to review, because I genuinely loved the ideas it contains. The big concepts, the mixture of sci-fi and magic, this whole innovative, engaging take on the magical girls trope—it’s chef’s kiss. And I loved, in that “fuck this hurts” sort of way, how some of the themes from Velveteen vs were further vivisected here, as well as some themes from the Wayward Children. I loved Yuina and Piper and wished I could really get to know them, with proper arcs and all.

But alas, I didn’t at all love how this story was told.

I think that it really suffers from being shoved into the slim novella format. Perhaps with some percolation, it could make an awesome novel, or even a series—or at least a collection of loosely interconnected shorts like Dying with Her Cheer Pants On. As it is, at the beginning there are whole long chapters that are basically just worldbuilding, to the point that getting through them didn’t feel like engaging with a story, it felt like listening to a friend excitedly ramble about this cool awesome new setting they invented. Yes, these chapters were smart and voicey, especially Piper’s parts, and yes, I mostly enjoyed reading them. Like I said, the setting is amazing! But as a result, the setting felt like something I was told of, not pulled into, and this was quite a lengthy set-up for such a short book. And then when the actual events started happening, stuff worth lingering on was rushed past, or sometimes all but skipped over, and there was that sudden POV switch that would have worked far better in a bigger work, and I got confused at least once because of how the narrative was just jumping from one thing to another.  Also, I really wish there could have been more flashbacks or something about the fallen teammates, because Paisley, Ashley, and Elena all sound awesome and deserved to be more fully realized, even if just as memories. But at the same time, I understand that no way was there room for that here, given the format.
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