this author‘s books are fantastic in how they really life up to what they promise.

i also love that both of the books i read by this author so far have both been Queernorm (is that the right way to spell that?) which i absolutely love!
for one because our real world is too stupid to let people just love who they want to as long as everyone is a consenting adult so it’s beautiful to see it be accepted and normalized somewhere and done sie beautifully!
and secondly i never understand fantasy books that keep this stuff (especially the bad things about it) the same as in the real world - why keep sexism? rape? trying to repress people and/or who they are if you are creating a whole new world setting? you can’t even imagine a world where everyone can just be who they want to be and be happy with that and have other bad stuff happen outside of that?! what kind of creative writer is that?!

so seeing this author do that -create a world that’s accepting and beautiful and struggles with other stuff instead- and do it well? Beautiful!
even more wonderful that it’s YA!



the story itself is well done too!

Tal is the cutest little cutey that just wants to be who is is but had a hard time actually accepting that himself. so going along this story with him and seeing him learn more about himself was great.

athlen was very well done as well. i really enjoyed how he could be utterly clueless with things and so knowledgeable in other areas. and how he just cared.

which both athlen and tal had in common - that they both cared almost too much about everyone around them.


and while this book did have a good amount of plot that was pretty well done -there were assassins, shifters, pirates, kidnapping, random notes and some interesting torture as well as some other stuff- it did feel a bit slow at times.
we got a sprint of action where a lot was happening in a very short amount of time and than almost double the amount of pages and/or chapters very little was happening and while that isn’t necessarily bad it did slow done the entire book in some sections quite a bit in a way that was very noticeable. so the pacing wasn’t too well done -especially if i compare it to the second book „so this is ever after“ by this author that i read first and loved and highly recommend!

it’s still very readable and a fun story with wonderful characters and fantastic sibling relationship.

it just feels like a debut novel (even if i don’t know for sure that it is actually the authors first book?) in how it seems a bit hesitant in many aspects.

there is the hint of the snark and sarcasm but it never quiet gets to the real snarky tone that can be fun and entertaining but stops at the point where i can be snark or just a hesitant character trying to braver than they feel (which does fit the story so there is that) but it felt like the it was supposed to be the humors snark not the hesitant kind it came across as.

also the fantasy aspects of this are not very well explained and feel underdeveloped. we get those things thrown in throughout the story that very slowly build up to a better understand about specific fantastical elements of this book but it could have been done better i felt like.
again it felt almost hesitant and a bit shy in explaining the fantastical/magical elements and so just gave the basics.


it’s an incredible nice to read story.

it’s a very cute YA story that i can only recommend!

and is definitely also one for younger YA readers since nothing too bad happens in the action moments that might be to much for them.
there are no hints of sex just some kissing, there is „torture“

but that’s scrupling the decks of a ship and such things

and while there is some injury mentioned it’s not graphic or descriptive. 

i would highly recommend giving this a try and stocking it in any and all places that especially kids can find it and enjoy a story where a Queer is perfectly normal!