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A review by sgbrux
Flock by Kate Stewart
4.0
Picked this one up on a whim after a booktube buddy of mine (Sam Reads a Little) pitched this one. I’m glad I picked it up!
A little about my typical reading tastes first: I am a lover of the classics and my absolute favorite genre is SFF. I prefer a good romance subplot in the books I read because, for me, it makes everything feel better rounded. Because life is multifaceted.
I only recently, in 2020, started dabbling in the romance and erotica genres. I can see the draw to these kinds of stories. There’s a reason romance is one of the top-selling genres out there.
I don’t believe in blanket-judging a genre based solely on run-of-the-mill genre assumptions. I make an effort to be open-minded about all stories. When it comes down to it, I judge a book by its characters, their drivers, the deeper ideas explored in the book, and ultimately, the author’s prose and style of writing.
As a writer myself, I study as I read, so I do this thing where I pick apart everything and compare and note how different genres do different things really, really well. Obviously, romance and erotica tend to have excellent examples on eliciting lust and desire, examining complex relationships, and coping with the deep regrets of the heart.
With all that said, Flock was my first read involving polyamorous relationships. Well, I lie. About halfway through The Expanse series, you’re introduced to Michio Pa’s poly relationship, so I’ve read a minor poly portrayal there, just set in space. Being otherwise ignorant of this lifestyle, I found Flock really refreshing. Enlightening, even.
"That’s the novelty of fiction versus reality. You can’t re-live your own love story because, by the time you’ve realized you’re living it, it’s over. At least that was the case for me."
The prologue completely and utterly captivated me. The protagonist Cecelia is 26 years old, seven years after the events of the main story. She is reflecting on a summer spent in a small town and how she lost the greatest love she has ever known, and how that loss has haunted and tainted her experiences with relationships since. She rejects that old saying, “better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.”
There were many ideas I agreed with and felt so deeply to my core when I was that age, which is why I was so engrossed by the prologue and Cecelia’s character. The book then goes into chronological order of the events that happened that summer that shook up her entire outlook on love and healthy relationships.
I won’t say anything more than that because I think it’s best to go into it as blindly as possible. But there was enough mystique with the cast of characters and mystery surrounding the overarching plot that I couldn’t put the book down. I’m dying to read the last two books in the series, which the third one just released a few days ago, so I won’t even have to wait!
Kate Stewart shows us a healthy, intriguing poly relationship from the perspective of a young woman who mirrors every thought and insecurity I’d have in her shoes, but that happens to be wound up in a complicated story I haven’t been able to nail down quite yet.
I enjoyed this one very much. It does end on quite the cliffhanger, so you’ll want to keep going. I’m giving this 4 stars for now.
"I’d bloodlet my heart—starved it—until it had no choice but to beat in a distinct rhythm that only matched the thrum of one other."
A little about my typical reading tastes first: I am a lover of the classics and my absolute favorite genre is SFF. I prefer a good romance subplot in the books I read because, for me, it makes everything feel better rounded. Because life is multifaceted.
I only recently, in 2020, started dabbling in the romance and erotica genres. I can see the draw to these kinds of stories. There’s a reason romance is one of the top-selling genres out there.
I don’t believe in blanket-judging a genre based solely on run-of-the-mill genre assumptions. I make an effort to be open-minded about all stories. When it comes down to it, I judge a book by its characters, their drivers, the deeper ideas explored in the book, and ultimately, the author’s prose and style of writing.
As a writer myself, I study as I read, so I do this thing where I pick apart everything and compare and note how different genres do different things really, really well. Obviously, romance and erotica tend to have excellent examples on eliciting lust and desire, examining complex relationships, and coping with the deep regrets of the heart.
With all that said, Flock was my first read involving polyamorous relationships. Well, I lie. About halfway through The Expanse series, you’re introduced to Michio Pa’s poly relationship, so I’ve read a minor poly portrayal there, just set in space. Being otherwise ignorant of this lifestyle, I found Flock really refreshing. Enlightening, even.
"That’s the novelty of fiction versus reality. You can’t re-live your own love story because, by the time you’ve realized you’re living it, it’s over. At least that was the case for me."
The prologue completely and utterly captivated me. The protagonist Cecelia is 26 years old, seven years after the events of the main story. She is reflecting on a summer spent in a small town and how she lost the greatest love she has ever known, and how that loss has haunted and tainted her experiences with relationships since. She rejects that old saying, “better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.”
There were many ideas I agreed with and felt so deeply to my core when I was that age, which is why I was so engrossed by the prologue and Cecelia’s character. The book then goes into chronological order of the events that happened that summer that shook up her entire outlook on love and healthy relationships.
I won’t say anything more than that because I think it’s best to go into it as blindly as possible. But there was enough mystique with the cast of characters and mystery surrounding the overarching plot that I couldn’t put the book down. I’m dying to read the last two books in the series, which the third one just released a few days ago, so I won’t even have to wait!
Kate Stewart shows us a healthy, intriguing poly relationship from the perspective of a young woman who mirrors every thought and insecurity I’d have in her shoes, but that happens to be wound up in a complicated story I haven’t been able to nail down quite yet.
I enjoyed this one very much. It does end on quite the cliffhanger, so you’ll want to keep going. I’m giving this 4 stars for now.
"I’d bloodlet my heart—starved it—until it had no choice but to beat in a distinct rhythm that only matched the thrum of one other."