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A review by emilie_rose
Black Wings Beating by Alex London
4.0
4 stars (was originally 3.5, but was amended).
Twins Brysen and Kylee go on a journey to capture a ghost eagle, the same type of bird that killed their abusive father, to be able to pay off their debts. But there is war brewing in their world and the outcome of their journey could do much more than just pay off their debts, as their people are following them, hoping to both gain the power of the ghost eagle and the power that Kylee holds, one she barely understands, but could do great things with.
I loved the representation in this book. . Brysen is gay and the books characters never bat an eyelash at that.
I loved the shift in viewpoints between Kylee and Brysen and how we spent quite a lot of times in their heads. I found the interludes between sections to be interesting, but some of them seemed to not really mean much, but I am hoping that the information given in them will mean more as the series continues.
I also enjoyed how fully fleshed out of characters Kylee and Brysen were and how we really got in their heads and knew their thought processes. I may have been annoyed at times by them, especially Brysen, as he was kind of dense and a bit of a jerk and was really only out for himself for most of the book and he was hard to sympathize with, but he did have a well thought out personality. Kylee had a bit of that too, where she was very convinced she was right and sometimes seemed to have a bit of a martyr complex when it came to doing things that were against what she wanted, but the flaws that these characters exhibited made them seem very real to me. I may have not always found them to be sympathetic characters, but they did seem very real.
However, I thought that the other characters suffered a little in comparison. I think that there were a lot of characters and they came off a little one note and predictable at times, but maybe that was just in comparison to how well we knew the twins.
Maybe it was just that there were so many different players that it felt a little much, but I had trouble connecting to anyone else. They all seemed a little bit like story archetypes sometimes, like the alternate love interest or the one who is pining for someone who’s not into them, but I hold out hope that we get to know them better in future books.
The world building was mostly well done, but I found it to be a little confusing at times. It took me a while to get that there was the Council of Forty, which were the Kyrgs that were the ones with the most power ( I think, I'm still not totally sure) and then there were lower level kyrgs and there were the different religions and cultures, Kartami, Uztari, the Owl Mothers and then the Altari, which were present in the beginning and then somewhat disappeared. It did all get a bit confusing at times, so that could have been better explained somehow, but I mostly followed it.
I also thought that some of the plotting reveals were off. We find out later in the book that, and they did a big scene where they told each other that, Brysen not realizing Kylee already knew and Kylee telling him for the first time, but since we as the audience already knew that, it kind of made that scene anti climactic. If London has kept that info quiet until that moment, it would have made it more of an impact.
Lastly, this is super nit picky, but the names of the characters bothered me somewhat. They seemed like super modern names, at least for the most part, that had been spelled differently to make them seem more fantastical. It took me out of the story a bit at the beginning, but I got used to it more as the book went on. Not a book ruiner, just somewhat distracting.
Verdict: This book was an original idea that did a good job with its main characters, but needs to flesh out the side characters more. It was definitely entertaining and kept my attention, but did suffer from some plotting issues and the way that it released information. But this is one book that I will definitely be on the lookout for the sequel when it is released.
Edit: I have been thinking about this book since I posted this review and have decided while all of this still stands, the amount that I enjoyed this book, regardless of anything else, means that this book deserves four stars, so I am amending my rating to reflect that.
Twins Brysen and Kylee go on a journey to capture a ghost eagle, the same type of bird that killed their abusive father, to be able to pay off their debts. But there is war brewing in their world and the outcome of their journey could do much more than just pay off their debts, as their people are following them, hoping to both gain the power of the ghost eagle and the power that Kylee holds, one she barely understands, but could do great things with.
I loved the representation in this book. . Brysen is gay and the books characters never bat an eyelash at that.
I loved the shift in viewpoints between Kylee and Brysen and how we spent quite a lot of times in their heads. I found the interludes between sections to be interesting, but some of them seemed to not really mean much, but I am hoping that the information given in them will mean more as the series continues.
I also enjoyed how fully fleshed out of characters Kylee and Brysen were and how we really got in their heads and knew their thought processes. I may have been annoyed at times by them, especially Brysen, as he was kind of dense and a bit of a jerk and was really only out for himself for most of the book and he was hard to sympathize with, but he did have a well thought out personality. Kylee had a bit of that too, where she was very convinced she was right and sometimes seemed to have a bit of a martyr complex when it came to doing things that were against what she wanted, but the flaws that these characters exhibited made them seem very real to me. I may have not always found them to be sympathetic characters, but they did seem very real.
However, I thought that the other characters suffered a little in comparison. I think that there were a lot of characters and they came off a little one note and predictable at times, but maybe that was just in comparison to how well we knew the twins.
Maybe it was just that there were so many different players that it felt a little much, but I had trouble connecting to anyone else. They all seemed a little bit like story archetypes sometimes, like the alternate love interest or the one who is pining for someone who’s not into them, but I hold out hope that we get to know them better in future books.
The world building was mostly well done, but I found it to be a little confusing at times. It took me a while to get that there was the Council of Forty, which were the Kyrgs that were the ones with the most power ( I think, I'm still not totally sure) and then there were lower level kyrgs and there were the different religions and cultures, Kartami, Uztari, the Owl Mothers and then the Altari, which were present in the beginning and then somewhat disappeared. It did all get a bit confusing at times, so that could have been better explained somehow, but I mostly followed it.
I also thought that some of the plotting reveals were off. We find out later in the book that
Spoiler
Kylee and Brysen followed their father up the mountain the day he was killed and that Kylee was the one to kill him to protect Brysen.Lastly, this is super nit picky, but the names of the characters bothered me somewhat. They seemed like super modern names, at least for the most part, that had been spelled differently to make them seem more fantastical. It took me out of the story a bit at the beginning, but I got used to it more as the book went on. Not a book ruiner, just somewhat distracting.
Verdict: This book was an original idea that did a good job with its main characters, but needs to flesh out the side characters more. It was definitely entertaining and kept my attention, but did suffer from some plotting issues and the way that it released information. But this is one book that I will definitely be on the lookout for the sequel when it is released.
Edit: I have been thinking about this book since I posted this review and have decided while all of this still stands, the amount that I enjoyed this book, regardless of anything else, means that this book deserves four stars, so I am amending my rating to reflect that.