Did you read To Shape a Dragon’s Breath and think to yourself, sure, this is nice, but what if it were emotionally devastating? 

This started off slowly for me. I struggled to feel immersed in the world, with so many terms all thrown together at once, different POVs, names, places. But, I stuck with it and I am glad. Around the 30% mark I feel like things really picked up and the pieces started to fall together in a way that made me want to keep reading through the end. 

Of the main POVs, Mira is my favorite, but I appreciated the depth that came with some of the other POVs as well. Cordelia’s provided valuable insight, and Nami’s time with the Drawbacks was also key. However, I found the storyline with Nami to be the most repetitive and frustrating. It felt like the same cycle of events over and over with her and the rebel group. I will say that the parallels with the little mermaid felt a little silly—it has to be purposeful, and yet did not match the tone of the rest of the book. The pacing was off towards the middle and started to drag a bit but things picked back up at around 80%. 

The ending both wrapped up some of the plot lines and also clearly left way for the sequel. I still have a lot of questions about Nami’s father & mother and the underwater havens, and I hope we see more of them in book 2. This was a very rich, vibrant, surprisingly dark world and I feel like we only scratched the surface of it.

I found it extremely difficult to like any of the characters in this book. The main character, a fat nonbinary person with the lowest self-esteem imaginable and yet a member of a very important family (probably, this is mentioned but makes little sense in the book), travels across the world having sex and begging literally anyone to love them. It’s honestly pretty sad. 

Meanwhile, actual plot is happening. There is an invasion of colonizers (our MC has sex with one) who are european-coded, pale skinned and uptight about gender roles, disagreements between various indigenous factions, an unexplained god system and wizards who we never see doing any magic, hostage taking and killing and so much travel. But the vast, vast majority of the text is the MC worrying about whether someone likes them, will they have sex, having the sex, conversations about whether they should have had the sex. 

Its not really a romance in the sense that not only is there no HEA, there’s not even a happily-for-this-chapter for the most part. These are all grim, sad decisions that are clearly bad for the MC and end in callous remarks and so many breakups. Yet so much of the book focuses on the romantic aspects of it. It makes me wonder who the audience of this book is supposed to be. 

Very lackluster and nonsensical worldbuilding, along with some truly distressing descriptions of knotting. Still, this couple was not just a carbon copy of Ali Hazelwood’s other couples and I really appreciated that. There are elements to the romance here that were very enjoyable, only to be ruined by the last 30% of the book. Still. I didn’t hate it. 

review of silver under nightfall

Silly goofy vampire couple seeking vampire hunter to complete our throuple. 

Us: Grumpy x Sunshine pair traveling the world doing science and diplomacy. Good guys love us and bad guys hate us (despite our tragic backstories, we have no flaws, only love & sex appeal). 

You: Must be awkward, traumatized, and with severe daddy issues. Noble intentions and law self-esteem absolutely necessary. Naïveté about the world you live in not required (but a plus).

We can offer action, adventure, fight scenes, vague magic, and of course, 🌶️ (sometimes uncomfortably close to aforementioned battle scenes). Come talk about our feelings while we all cause a shocking amount of death! 

beautifully written. but it’s YA, almost bordering on middle grade. I’m not positive what message Emezi was going for overall but I don’t think Pet achieved it; the moralistic stuff is at once very simplistic and yet muddled. I think it was an interesting concept that wasn’t taken far enough to be truly meaningful. I was hopeful it would delve into issues of restorative justice instead of just a very surface level take of, even people who seem good can do bad things. 

Basically a part two of Network Effect, picking up immediately where NE left off with no build up or background knowledge. I loved the deep dive into Murderbot’s organic brain material, anxiety, and PTSD, and I was happy that the NE plot was wrapped up. 

However, it’s starting to get to a point where I want more from this series. There’s been like 7 entries and I love the world, I love the characters, I love Murderbot. But I need a little more variation in the individual plots. I’m hoping the next book does that, following Murderbot and ART on a mission.