'Black Wings Beating' was a slow burn book, on the jacket you are promised an adventure for power, a story about a town that will soon be war-ravaged. Not on the book, but I was told that this would have LGBTQ+ rep in the story.

This book is really about siblings Kylee and Brysen. Brysen is in love with another boy, and that boy is impoverished, and for Brysen to save him, he has to catch this mythic bird. Brysen is a character that has been physically abused by his father, and his sister is living with the guilt of having done nothing to try and help him. Brysen sets off on his own, away from the little town to hunt down this bird to free his lover. I did go into this book thinking that this book was going to have an lgbtq+ rep and that it would be part of the story, but it's barely mentioned.

I was very intrigued by this book, and it was a mystery of a book wrapped up under that gorgeous cover. Brysen sets off into the mountains by himself to hunt this bird. Unknown to him, his sister Kylee is following him to make sure nothing happens to him. We later discover that Kylee has a magical connection to birds and can somehow control them.

Where this book went wrong for me was that there wasn't enough character development. I spent over 400 pages reading this book, and I could tell you nothing about these characters other than what is state above. There also was no world building aside from the info dump at the beginning of the book. The characters weren't likable. I'm disappointed with this book, one of my favorite authors had hyped it up, so I bought it. This would have been a better book if 200 pages were cut out, it still would have gotten the point across, and it wouldn't have been such a slow burn of a book. It's a shame that the plot, characters, and world-building fell flat because London's writing was pretty decent as far as YA goes. If the plot and characters had been developed, I would have rated it higher.