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A review by velvettwink
Beasts of Prey by Ayana Gray
3.0
3.5
Beasts of Prey opens a debut fantasy trilogy surrounding an indentured servant who works at the Night Zoo and a boy on the brink of joining a militant group until a fire at the Zoo changes both of their lives trajectories. Very similar premise to an Ember in the Ashes!
For a debut, I found this to be incredibly engaging, well paced, and was full of interesting Pan-African lore, magic, religion and even fantastical beasts. I found all of this paired with the centred focus on two black teens, to add something fresh to the overpopulated YA space.
in terms of characters, yes they are pretty typical for YA, but I believe Ekon is neurodiverse which was good rep, and I found both of them to be very well realised.
With most YA nowadays, I did find the authors attempts at "twists" to be rather obvious from the onset, but overall this was a very engaging read and one of the better YA releases this year- excited to continue the trilogy!
Beasts of Prey opens a debut fantasy trilogy surrounding an indentured servant who works at the Night Zoo and a boy on the brink of joining a militant group until a fire at the Zoo changes both of their lives trajectories. Very similar premise to an Ember in the Ashes!
For a debut, I found this to be incredibly engaging, well paced, and was full of interesting Pan-African lore, magic, religion and even fantastical beasts. I found all of this paired with the centred focus on two black teens, to add something fresh to the overpopulated YA space.
in terms of characters, yes they are pretty typical for YA, but I believe Ekon is neurodiverse which was good rep, and I found both of them to be very well realised.
With most YA nowadays, I did find the authors attempts at "twists" to be rather obvious from the onset, but overall this was a very engaging read and one of the better YA releases this year- excited to continue the trilogy!